Forest & Bird Magazine Issue 382 Summer 2021

NEW ZEALAND’S INDEPENDENT VOICE FOR NATURE

TE REO O TE TAIAO

WILD OCEAN Braided RIVER BIRDS

E ST. 1 92 3

№ 382  SUMMER 2021

LORDE ROCKS IT

FOR NATURE

OUR INCREDIBLE LIZARD LIFE

Contents ISSUE 382

• Summer 2021

Editorial

Cover

Climate

2 Standing up for nature 4 Letters + Crazy bird quiz

14 Rewilding our oceans

22 Time to talk adaptation?

54 Powering the future – coal Q&A

answers + Christmas book giveaway

News 7 Double your money appeal 8 Seabed mining win + hihi high five

10 Hoofed pests ruin carbon sinks + KCC postcard campaign

12 Bird of the Year 2021 winner

Freshwater 19 Restoring wetlands 26 Braided river birds and the big

History

Biodiversity

Branch

20 Witnessing a live lizard birth 42 Beaches not highways 46 26 Habitats NZ

29 Rat tucker research boosts

flood

24 The Rei Hamon-Lorde collaboration

birdlife

53 Fensham reserve flourishes

Economy 30 Investing with purpose

19

20

COVER SHOT Clown toado also known as the sharp-nosed puffer found in the waters off the

Kermadec Islands and Cape Reinga to East Cape.

Richard Robinson, www.depth.co.nz PAPER ENVELOPE Kākāpō.

Jake Osborne RENEWAL Clematis puawānanga.

Jake Osborne

Thank you for supporting us! Forest & Bird is New Zealand’s largest and oldest independent conservation charity.

EDITOR

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Forest & Bird is published quarterly by the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. Registered at PO Headquarters, Wellington, as a magazine. ISSN 0015-7384 (Print), ISSN 2624-1307 (Online). Copyright: All rights reserved. Opinions expressed by contributors in the magazine are not necessarily those of Forest & Bird.

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In the field

Consumer

Research

32 The wolf within, dogs on

45 Reef-safe sunscreens

60 Green spaces good for the brain

Forest & Bird shop

Obituaries

50 Ethical Christmas gifts

61 Alan Edmonson + Helen

beaches

Farming 34 Dealing to deer in Southland

A year in review 36 Forest & Bird’s highlights and campaign wins 2021

Arts 40 Tohorā tales

Urban nature 44 Butterfly-friendly gardens

Market place

52 Conservation superheroes

62 Classifieds

Community

Last word

56 Nature in lockdown

64 Tracking tohorā

Books 58 Holiday reads + 20% readers’ discount

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CONTACT NATIONAL OFFICE Forest & Bird National Office Ground Floor, 205 Victoria Street Wellington 6011 PO Box 631, Wellington 6140 T 0800 200 064 or 04 385 7374 E office@forestandbird.org.nz W www.forestandbird.org.nz

Campbell

Our partners

Parting shot IBC Tāmure snapper

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CONTACT A BRANCH See www.forestandbird.org.nz/ branches for a full list of our 50 Forest & Bird branches.

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Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. Forest & Bird is a registered charitable entity under the Charities Act 2005. Registration No CC26943.

PATRON Her Excellency The Rt Honourable Dame Cindy Kiro, GNZM, QSO Governor-General of New Zealand CHIEF EXECUTIVE Kevin Hague PRESIDENT Mark Hanger TREASURER Alan Chow BOARD MEMBERS Chris Barker, Kaya Freeman,

Kate Graeme, Richard Hursthouse, Monica Peters, Te Atarangi Sayers, Ines Stäger CONSERVATION AMBASSADORS Sir Alan Mark, Gerry McSweeney, Craig Potton DISTINGUISHED LIFE MEMBERS Graham Bellamy, Ken Catt, Linda Conning, Audrey Eagle, Philip Hart, Joan Leckie, Hon. Sandra Lee-Vercoe, Carole Long, Peter Maddison, Sir Alan Mark, Gerry McSweeney, Craig Potton, Fraser Ross, Eugenie Sage, Guy Salmon, Lesley Shand

EDITORIAL

STANDING UP FOR NATURE

F

orest & Bird is indebted to the many thousands of individuals who devote part of their day, week, month, or year volunteering for conservation.

A member recently told me how she had hoped to spend a good part of her retirement time assisting Forest & Bird locally. But, after becoming heavily involved in another local conservation initiative, she now had limited time and felt a little guilty.

She did, however, buy two trail cameras for our Bring Back the Seabirds project near Dunedin. Amazing!

Assistance to Forest & Bird, in whatever form, is greatly appreciated. I cannot emphasise this enough.

There is no right or wrong way to contribute to our environmental work. Indeed, it’s the diversity of our support base that make us unique as a conservation organisation.

New generations bring new energy, vigour, and different ways of doing things. Forest & Bird saw a huge growth in membership, especially among younger New Zealanders, following the Save Manapōuri and native forest mass protest campaigns of the 1970s and 80s.

Today, different issues face Aotearoa and the planet as a whole.

Freshwater is becoming a rare commodity in many parts of the country, oceans are being denuded and used as dumping grounds, while the challenges of a changing climate are becoming more apparent every week.

We are continually having to act smarter to achieve our conservation objectives to speak up for nature and fight for its protection and restoration. As we head into our 99th year in 2022, having a strong supporter base is more important now than ever.

Whether you are a branch committee member, a

stalwart of local conservation working bees, write submissions, assist with Kiwi Conservation Club, are a Youth member, donate your hard-earned dollars, or have included a gift in your will, you are to be applauded for helping protect nature in a way that works for you.

Those who are time-rich assist by working on local frontline conservation projects through their branches.

Those who are time-poor or have family commitments often assist financially, while some wonderful supporters do the mahi and make financial gifts to help the nature they love. We appreciate everyone’s contribution, however you choose to give it.

Each expression of support, when multiplied 10,000 times or more around the country, quickly adds up and enables Forest & Bird’s national and regional conservation staff to work more effectively for nature.

We treasure each and every one of you and your contributions during 2021, a tough year for so many of us. You can read a summary of the highlights and wins for the environment that you helped achieve later in this magazine.

Our supporters, members, donors, and volunteers are at the heart of everything Forest & Bird does. A huge thank you for standing up and speaking out for nature.

Ngā manaakitanga

Mark Hanger Forest & Bird President Perehitini, Te Reo o te Taiao

Forest & Bird Youth volunteers at a community planting day in Auckland earlier this year.

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Forest & Bird Te Reo o te Taiao

SMALL SHIP ADVENTURES

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LETTERS YOUR FEEDBACK Forest & Bird welcomes your thoughts on conservation topics. Please email letters up to 200 words, with your name, home address, and phone number, to editor@forestandbird.org.nz, or by post to the Editor, Forest & Bird magazine, 205 Victoria Street, Wellington 6011, by 1 February 2022. We don’t always have space to publish all letters or use them in full.

WRITE AND WIN The best contribution to the Letters page will receive a copy of Tussock

by Bruce Hunt, Bateman Books, RRP $69.99 (see page 59 for details about this lovely book).

BANNING VEHICLES ON BEACHES

dairying. We can add precipitous decline in freshwater quality, landscape degradation, and biodiversity loss to the coal burning Clark now laments. I vividly recall Clark’s impassioned call to arms on climate action in her Leader’s address at the 2006 Labour Party conference. Incredibly, she was sharing the stage that day with Peter Beattie, Premier of Queensland, one of the world’s largest coal exporters, who spoke on the wonders of carbon-capture. The cognitive dissonance was overwhelming. Clark now says: “It’s all a question of political will.” Her words might really mean something if she herself had exercised that kind of political will when she had the chance.

The perception that beaches are roads like any other is not accurate. Under the Land Transport Act, speed limits, WOFs, etc are enforceable on beaches, the same as if vehicles were on a road, but this does not mean that vehicles are automatically allowed to drive on a beach. Some beaches are legal roads – for example, Ninety Mile Beach – others are paper roads now located on a beach because of coastal erosion, and access to some property is only available along a beach. However, the legality of driving on a beach is subject to any local, regional, or national regulation applying to a particular location. Members are asking for a national policy to prohibit vehicles from beaches, but there already is Policy 20 of the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement, which was promulgated in 2010 and does allow for exceptions. Councils have put it in the too hard basket (too hard to say no to drivers of 4WDs). The best action branches can take is to advocate for bylaws or rules in district plans as they come up for review and for the National Planning Framework in the proposed Natural and Built Environments Bill to include BEST clearer direction than Policy 20.

Linda Conning Ohope

LETTER WINNER

☛ See page 42 for more on this issue, which has been troubling conservationists from Northland to Southland.

CLARK’S COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

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Kevin Hague’s interview with former Prime Minister Helen Clark (Spring 2021) makes for uncomfortable reading. Clark bemoans our “shockingly low” level of ambition in tackling the climate crisis. The bar is lamentably low, but let’s not forget who set it. Clark’s fifth Labour government promised a carbon tax but gave us instead an Emissions Trading Scheme, watered down by successors and so full of exemptions it acts more like a welfare scheme for big polluters than a brake on emissions. Fonterra was another Clark government creation, ushering in the era of industrial

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Forest & Bird Te Reo e t Taoai

John McCall Auckland

TRAGEDY UNFOLDS ON RAKIURA Rob Chappell’s letter (Spring 2021) is chilling reading.

He says, “deer were everywhere, as were feral cats … the forest was so disappointing with almost no regeneration”. He is describing the catastrophic state of indigenous ecosystem health on Rakiura, a national park. Exterminating deer and feral cats on Rakiura, 176,000ha, would restore its indigenous ecosystems and their carbon sequestration function. It’ll be a huge task but an inspirational extension of the Predator Free 2050 plan. DOC should be funded to employ deer cullers to shoot the deer. Bait stations designed to be mounted on trees then filled with 1080 and a lure would supplement the cullers’ work. The cullers should be paid at least the living wage plus $5 for each deer tail they obtain.

Eliminating cats from Rakiura, using traps such as I saw there in 2007, plus bait stations filled with toxin and a lure, would complete the pest eradication. Nature will then begin restoring itself, unimpeded by introduced vermin. Rakiura would become a jewel in our national parks network, a 21st-century example of natural ecosystem restoration aided by human determination.

Chris Horne Wellington

The published letter “Cutting out Coal” (Spring 2021) contains many incorrect or misleading statements. I certainly hope most Forest & Bird supporters are much better informed than this individual. Most definitely, all coal is bad. From the enormous fossil fuels required to remove the massive quantities of overburden (and forest removal) associated with open-cast mining, the methane release on seam exposure and the CO2 emissions from coking coal steel production, plus of course the wholesale destruction of habitats. The alternatives being we increase steel recycling from the current low levels, rethink the need for big steel infrastructure projects, and transition to zero-carbon hydrogen steel that Sweden is commercialising. It is also quite likely in the near future there will be a worldwide glut of scrap steel from decommissioned oilrigs, pipelines, oil tankers, petrol and diesel vehicles, fishing vessels, etc, which will greatly lessen the demand for coking coal. I live on the West Coast, not far from Te Kuha, which is facing the insanity of new coal mine proposals, and I often think “let’s get real!” Apart from the letter, thanks for another informative and inspiring issue.

Suzanne Hills West Coast ☛ See page 54 for our Q&A about coal and the climate.

REMOVE MICE FIRST, THEN RATS In the May 2002 issue of Forest & Bird, I warned that eliminating cats, stoats, and weasels leaves a haven for rats around the trapped area. The DOC 2000 newsletter records: “The apparent loss of the Mt Stokes mohua has been devastating. Numbers increased spectacularly with stoat control over the past 10 years, but an unprecedented irruption of ship rats during the winter of 1999 spelt their doom. We need to learn from this experience.” Recently, Zero Invasive Predators cleared 17000ha in Westland of possums and stoats, leaving rats in “very low numbers” (Forest & Bird, Winter 2021). Lucky for these predator-free, bait-shy rats, and farewell to the rare native birds that will be wiped out next fruiting year in another “unprecedented irruption”. As Guthrie-Smith (1936) put it: “What a poor, curtailed, mutilated sterile world we threaten our descendants with! Man and the rat sharing it ...” But don’t forget rats kill mice, who on Gough Island eat albatrosses and, in Australia, pigs. Compulsory ecology at school (in Russia since 2002 and now even in China) could teach us to remove mice first. Rats help prevent re-invasion. Then get rid of rats, weasels, stoats, ferrets, and cats, in that order.

Dr John Flux Lower Hutt

God’s Eye

The Countryside In all her morning dewy glory Held her breath Waiting for God’s Eye To turn towards her And Smile!

By Ruary Laidlaw Inspired by a drive through the morning countryside from Hinuera on the way to Te Poi, in the Waikato, during Level 4 lockdown, 25 August 2021.

CRAZY BIRD QUIZ

Thanks to everyone who entered our competition to guess the correct group names for nine native birds. The winners were Marie Kyle-Stevenson, of Christchurch, and Brendan Reid, of Whangaparaoa. They each scoop a copy of Melissa Boardman’s Birds of New Zealand book THE ANSWERS WERE:

➊ A gliding of Antipodean albatross ➋ An ecstasy of tūī ➌ A plummet of Australasian gannets ➍ A pantheon of bar-tailed godwits ➎ An echo of moreporks ➏ A hoon of kākā ➐ A chime of riflemen ➑ A freeze of bittern ➒ A committee of white-fronted terns

Lyndon Hookham

COAL DOESN’T CUT IT

LETTERS SECURING OUR SNIPE

WHY NO NATIVE FINCHES?

Well done, Forest & Bird. “Parting Shot” in your latest edition features a marvellous image by Professor James Russell of a Chatham Island snipe! But I’m curious, can anyone explain to me why this bird and sub-Antarctic snipe, respectively nationally vulnerable and naturally uncommon species, aren’t being actively protected by relocation? Two areas in the North Island seem ripe for this exercise. Capital Kiwi and Mana Island appear ideal for Chatham Island snipe. Both are significant areas of formerly farmed grassland and recovering first generation bush. Both are predator-suppressed/ predator-free areas. I can appreciate that Capital Kiwi is properly focused on its very impressive primary goal of restoring a large-scale wild kiwi population on Wellington’s doorstep. But isn’t piggy-backing snipe on to it worthy of discussion? As for Mana Island, surely that’s an even more immediate option? Isn’t it time we took out a little more insurance on two very distinct species and returned relatives of species that used to be on the main islands, in the South Island’s case, as little as 60 years ago?

I’ve always had a question about birds in New Zealand – why are there no native finches? It seems like a whole group of birds which are widespread everywhere else are completely absent from NZ. Is this strange or have we already lost them to extinction?

Daniel Sweeney Queenstown

Denis Asher Wellington

Forest & Bird’s Top of the South Island regional conservation manager Debs Martin answers: “The short answer is land-mass isolation and degree of distance from finch populations around the rest of the world. There are a million questions as to why certain species ended up in other parts of the world, but our relatively early isolation from other land masses and distances from continents where such birds often proliferate would possibly be the key reason.”

THE WINNERS of The Spirit of the Mountains by Ron Hay were Malar Aravindan, of Auckland, and Todd Edwards, of Silverdale.

BUMPER BOOK PRIZE DRAW One lucky reader will win a prize pack made up of these five books (value $215), thanks to our friends at Potton & Burton. Forest & Bird supporters can also get a 20% discount on these titles. To find out more, go to page 58.

➊ Above the

Treeline

by Alan Mark

➋ After Dark

by Annette Lees

➌ New Zealand

➍ Incredible

Seabirds

by Kerry-Jayne Wilson

Journeys

by Ned Barraud

➎ Backyard Birds

by Ned Barraud

HOW TO ENTER Email your entry to draw@forestandbird.org.nz and put BUMPER in the subject line. Please include your name and address in the email. Or write your name and address on the back of an envelope and post the BUMPER draw, Forest & Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington 6140. Entries close 1 February 2022.

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SUMMER APPEAL DOUBLE YOUR DONATION (for free!)

Every dollar you give to the new Te Kuha legal fighting fund will be matched by a group of generous donors if you give before 20 December 2021.

R

eaders of this magazine will be familiar with Forest & Bird’s long-running efforts to save untouched Te Kuha from being decimated by a new open-cast coal mine.

You may have thought the battle was over after our small in-house legal team won its legal case in the Supreme Court last year.

In fact, thanks to your support, we have now been to court to protect Te Kuha four times since 2016.

In each case, the court’s justices agreed with Forest & Bird and said no to digging up the ancient forest and slicing the top off a prominent landmark visible from Westport.

But Stevenson Mining is back with one last roll of the dice. The last legal loophole they can attempt to exploit. Their last chance to mine Te Kuha.

In early 2022, Stevenson Mining’s lawyers will be in the Environment Court seeking resource consent to mine on another part of Te Kuha.

With your help, Forest & Bird’s lawyers will also be in court to oppose this move.

Te Kuha supports one of the largest populations in the country of this endangered pepe, the forest ringlet.

Melissa Hutchison

The area has experienced almost no human disturbance.

Mining it would cause damage that is irreversible.”

Eugenie Sage, former Conservation Minister

“No-one else stands between Te Kuha’s wildlife and a bleak future but us, and by us, I mean you,” says Kevin Hague, Forest & Bird’s chief executive.

“We simply cannot afford to lose an unspoiled habitat like Te Kuha.

Not for the sake of money, and certainly not for the sake of coal.

“If you feel the same way, please help me raise the fighting fund we need to save Te Kuha.”

“Your donation will automatically be doubled by the Save Te Kuha Matching Fund, which has been created by a small group of Forest & Bird benefactors specifically to fight this legal battle.”

Te Kuha has no roads. The only way to get to the proposed mine site is to tramp in. The mountain is home to a large population of forest ringlets, the rarest and most fragile endemic butterflies in New Zealand.

Moko pirirākau forest gecko, speckled skink, moko kākāriki West Coast green gecko, a rare species of leaf-veined slug that’s unique to Te Kuha, 500-year-old trees, and 17 threatened plant species, including the native eyebright, are also found there.

Who would want to tear the heart out of this fragile, unique coal measure ecosystem, with its

priceless intrinsic value?

Who would do this in the middle of a global climate crisis and a national biodiversity emergency?

The answer is the shareholders of Stevenson Mining Ltd. They want to dig up every last lump of coal in the ground – unless you help us stop them.

“Precious habitats like Te Kuha are taonga beyond price and must be protected at all costs. Let’s keep the coal in the ground,” adds Kevin.

Please give today at www.forestandbird.org.nz/ savetekuha.

Roroa great-spotted kiwi are extremely fussy about being disturbed. Opencast mining in their backyard would be catastrophic.

Rod Morris Summer 2021

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NATURE NEWS TTR wants to mine ironsand off the coast of Pātea, South Taranaki.

Philipp Holler

SEABED MINING

VICTORY

In September, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected an appeal by mining company TransTasman Resources Limited (TTR) to mine ironsand in the South Taranaki Bight.

F

orest & Bird has stood shoulder-to-shoulder in court with local iwi and hapū, community organisations, and other environmental e-NGOs to stop seabed mining in the South Taranaki Bight.

The area is home to more than 30 species of marine mammals, including some that are critically endangered – for example, blue whales and Māui dolphins.

It is an important migratory corridor for humpback whales. Little

blue penguins use the area, and the Pātea Shoals are an important natural area closer to shore.

The Supreme Court was the third New Zealand court to reject TTR’s mining proposal.

The operation would have sucked up 8000 tonnes of seabed every hour for 35 years, to a depth of 11m, and pumped unused sediment back to the ocean floor, creating a plume of pollution in the water. “This decision makes it clear that destructive seabed mining

HIHI HIGH FIVE

Check out Stuff’s excellent This is How it Ends seven-part biodiversity series that ran during October.

Writer Andrea Vance and photographer Iain McGregor travelled around the country to investigate the biodiversity crisis, creating powerful documentaries about our native wildlife.

One of them features an interview with Mandy Brook, manager of Forest & Bird’s Bushy Park Tarapuruhi Sanctuary, near Whanganui. This ecological island with remnant lowland forest is home to a thriving population of breeding hihi.

The Stuff series includes incredible imagery and lots of thought-provoking content, including a long-form think piece penned by our chief executive Kevin Hague explaining how nature can protect us from climate change.

Jake Osborne

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damages the environment and is unlikely to get consent under current legislation,” said Forest & Bird’s legal counsel Peter Anderson.

“Political parties should now give everyone certainty by bringing forward the Pāti Māori’s bill to ban seabed mining.

“The Environmental Protection Agency’s original decision to grant consent failed to protect the environment and didn’t meet the requirements of the Exclusive Economic Zone Act. The High Court, the Court of Appeal, and now the Supreme Court all have agreed with us.”

The proposed mining area would have covered 65km2 of seabed, more than three times the size of Kāpiti Island.

But TTR isn’t going away any time soon. At the time of writing, the company formally requested the Environmental Protection Authority to reconvene its Decision Making Committee to reconsider consents in the case, taking into account the Supreme Court’s judgment.

Forest & Bird will carry on trying to stop TTR’s seabed mining plans.

“Iwi, community groups, and charities shouldn’t have to keep spending time and resources defending what is now a hopeless case,” added Peter.

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Forest & Bird Te Reo o te Taiao

Watch the Bushy Park Tarapuruhi hihi at https://bit.ly/3biJSEU. They feature from 6:10 mins, but you will probably want to watch the whole thing!

NATURE NEWS

HOOFED PEST INVASION SPREADS

Feral goats, Hawke’s Bay. Jon Sullivan

Urgent measures are needed to stop increasing numbers of wild browsing mammals from destroying the nation’s native forest carbon sinks.

C

ontrolling hordes of feral deer, pigs, and goats on public and private land would reduce New Zealand’s climate emissions and boost biodiversity.

In October, Forest & Bird’s climate campaign team released a series of maps based on Department of Conservation data showing how much land has been invaded by these animals.

The maps show how wild deer, pigs, and goats now roam close to 100% of all native habitats, including public conservation land.

These browsing mammals have moved into a third more land than they occupied eight years ago, according to DOC. Two-thirds (67%) of primary production land has also been colonised by at least one species of wild deer, pig, or goat.

Pāmu, the nation’s largest farming company, issued a statement confirming it was seeing a significant and expensive increase in hooved pests on its farms.

Eleven different introduced European species are currently Gordon Williams munching their way through forests, shrublands, and tussocklands, destroying valuable natural carbon stores.

Port Waikato, Whanganui, East Cape, Marlborough, Central Otago, the Kaikōura Ranges, and the Catlins are especially under pressure.

Aotearoa’s native plants haven’t evolved to cope with these introduced browsing mammals. It’s uncommon for them to have the kind of toxic or thorny defences that these pests might encounter in their home countries.

Forest & Bird is calling on the government to urgently fund the largest wild deer, pig, and goat control programme New Zealand has ever seen to protect our

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Forest & Bird Te Reo o te Taiao

important carbon sinks.

“The number and extent of wild deer, pigs, and goats on all land types across New Zealand is at crisis levels,” says Forest & Bird chief executive Kevin Hague.

“Our analysis shows that close to 100% of native habitat has at least one species of deer, pig, or goat on it.”

Pāmu’s environment manager Gordon Williams says it’s a tough battle to control the wild deer, pigs, and goats that have invaded their farms all over the country.

“Even our farm staff were unaware of the scale of the problem, and we are likely underestimating the pests within the wider landscape,” he said.

“It is an ever-growing threat to our work establishing plantings for forestry but also for erosion and nitrogen leaching control.

“We have initiated full-scale pest and predator control on every one of our Northland farms, covering nearly 18,000ha, which has seen a marked decrease in the destructive effects of pigs and other pests but has come at considerable financial cost.”

Tasman Smith Scenic Reserve, in Canterbury, showing extensive deer and wallaby damage to the forest. Joy Sagar

According to the Climate Commission, native forests are nationally significant carbon sinks and keeping them intact is vital for New Zealand’s climate protection efforts.

It has called for a massive forest restoration programme and a ramped-up browsing mammal control programme to protect existing native forests.

“Unless there is urgent intervention, our country’s largest living carbon sinks are on a death watch,” adds Kevin.

“This is extremely important. New Zealand’s ancient native forests are central to helping us do our fair share and keep global warming to safe levels.”

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Feral deer, pigs, and goats have invaded most of the country (pink). Orange and red dots show high/crisis levels on conservation land. Credit: Forest & Bird

☛ See page 34 for more on the damage deer are doing on private farmland with high biodiversity values.

NEW CLIMATE TARGET

As this magazine went to print, the government announced its new international climate target of 50% below 2005 levels, which equates to about a 22% cut in reality.

The new target is an improvement on the last target but is still not a fair contribution to global efforts, says Forest & Bird’s climate activist Geoff Keey.

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“Unless the government delivers a much better plan to cut emissions than what we have seen so far, this target will be mostly met by buying carbon credits from other countries.

“That’s a government subsidy to polluters like the dairy industry.”

For the latest on our climate campaign, see www. forestandbird.org.nz/what-we-do/climate-economy.

KIDS SEND OCEAN MESSAGE Young Kiwi Conservation Club members have been sending postcards to the Prime Minister asking her to take action to guarantee a better climate future for everyone.

The pen-a-postcard campaign was timed to coincide with the consultation period for the government’s climate change consultation and draft emissions reduction plan.

Every KCC member received a postcard with their November Wild Things magazine. They were asked to colour in the card and send it with a climate-related message to Jacinda Ardern.

Chief executive Kevin Hague wrote to the Prime Minister warning her to expect a stream of cards to come her way.

“One of the best ways to help children understand big and sometimes scary issues is to help them feel part of the solution,” he said.

“That’s why we’ve given them a postcard to personalise and send to the person who is best able to stand up for

their long-term interests.”

The latest issue of Forest & Bird’s Wild Things children’s magazine is all about New Zealand’s marine environment, which is very vulnerable to a warming climate.

Our oceans have the potential to be a hugely powerful “blue carbon” sink if government ministers put proper measures in place to protect it.

Copies of the climate postcard are on KCC’s website at www.kcc.org.nz. Please encourage your tamariki or mokopuna to send one to the Prime Minister.

Dear Jacinda Ardern,

FREEPOST

My name is

and I’m years old. I’m writing to ask you to look after our climate. New Zealand’s environment is really special – especially our oceans! Did you know oceans help fight climate change? But our oceans need your help. Carbon pollution from cars, cows, and coal hurts our oceans!

Because if we look after our environment, it’ll look after us. Please protect our oceans and our climate now – for the future.

P.S.

leave your own comment here

(no stamp needed)

TO:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern The Beehive Wellington Aotearoa New Zealand

NATURE NEWS

FLYING FURBALL WINS

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A wannabe avian scooped top spot in our annual Bird of the Year, and what a kerfuffle its inclusion in the competition caused. Caroline Wood

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AVIAN HIGHLIGHTS Managers for the 75 Bird of the Year candidates knocked it out of the park with their high energy campaigns. Here are our plaudits and virtual bouquets from this year’s competition.

First up, a huge thank you to Amber Shaw, of Christchurch, who provided the New Zealand sign language translations for many of our native species for the first time in the competition’s history.

Our award for the best newcomer went to the cryptic moho pererū banded rail, who stepped out from its saltmarsh shadows, going from zero to hero, thanks to its campaign manager the National Wetland’s Trust.

The cheeky kākāriki karaka or orange-fronted parakeet scooped the “king of memes” crown for its communications in a campaign led

by Luis Ortiz-Catedral, of the New Zealand Parrot Trust.

“They were the masters of

cutting out bird heads to stick on human bodies in a series of hilarious memes,” commented Bird of the Year spokeswoman Laura Keown.

The most-improved campaign goes to titipounamu, the ancient rifleman, who stole hearts and minds across the motu.

Its cracking campaign, led

by Wellington illustrator Melissa Boardman, saw the nation’s tiniest bird set out to show why it was worthy of winning the big title.

“Melissa flooded her newsfeed with adorable photos and videos, and it was also endorsed by Wellington City Council and Zealandia.”

The best overall campaign – with its combination of conservation messaging, celebrity endorsement, designer t-shirts, and best tagline “Seabirds not treebirds” – goes to Team Toroa, led by Dan Brady.

Endorsed by the nation’s top sailors from New Zealand SailGP

Team, the Antipodean albatross carried the torch for all our critically endangered seabirds.

Finally, a huge thank you to Ecostore, Metalbird, Bennetto Chocolate, Honeywrap, Goodnature, and Allbirds for partnering with Forest & Bird to bring you a very memorable Bird of the Year 2021.

COVER

Hāpuku or groper used to be a keystone predator in our ocean, but stocks have crashed in recent decades. Crispin Middleton, NIWA

REWILDING THE OCEAN

Is it possible to restore wild fish stocks by breeding and releasing keystone species such as hāpuku into marine protected areas? Alex Stone investigates.

I

magine you’re settling in at the restaurant, and one of your party fancies the look of the roasted hāpuku on the menu. She asks the waitron whether it was caught in a sustainable way.

“Absolutely!” she cheerily replies, “All our fish is.”

Fortunately, your other companion is a Professor of Marine Science at the University of Auckland. You turn to him in questioning fashion, and his answer is less rosy: “This species is in free fall,” is his grim summation.

“Friends of the Sea has certified it as a sustainable fishery, and it is touted in Auckland restaurants and overseas as such, but it is a total greenwash.

“The reality is that we just don’t know how they are doing. We still have no real data on hāpuku population dynamics.”

This is a true story, and our restaurant Dr Andrew Jeffs professor is Dr Andrew Jeffs, who has researched a wide variety of marine species around New Zealand’s coastline over 30 years.

What we do know, he says, is the total commercial fishing allowable catch for hāpuku, also known as groper or sea bass, has not been taken over the past 30 years.

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Experts don’t know why. Fishers could be prioritising the catching of other species, or perhaps the fish are too canny to catch with current commercial fishing methods.

But the third, and most likely, reason is the hāpuku population has crashed because of overfishing.

Back in the day, groper were a dominant inshore reef predator fish in the Hauraki Gulf, a keystone species.

The image (right) from 1913 shows how easy they were to catch 100 years ago.

Today, hāpuku are locally extinct in the inner Hauraki Gulf and don’t appear to be returning – even in “no take” marine protected reserves.

In 40 years of diving at New Zealand’s oldest marine reserve, Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve (better-known as Goat Island), Andrew Jeffs has never seen one.

“Hāpuku are a deep-water species. You can only catch them around the Mokohinau Islands,” say recreational fishing folk.

To which Andrew responds: “The new recreational fishing boats, with their twin 100-hp motors, make getting to the Mokohinau Islands all too easy. We’re busy fishing them out there too.”

There are actually two similar hāpuku species

OneShot/Terry Hann

Hāpuku are a large slow-growing, long-lived species.

They reach sexual maturity between 10 and 13 years old and have lifespans of about 60 years. They can grow as large as 100kg but are usually found around the 25kg mark. The value of the fishery (hāpuku and bass) to New Zealand was $57 million in 2019.

covered by the commercial fishing quota, which hasn’t changed since it was introduced in 1996. So we are probably fishing two stocks, both of which are in trouble.

Forest & Bird’s Best Fish Guide lists hāpuku as a red or “worst choice” species and recommends you don’t eat it, suggesting people choose a more sustainable fish such as kahawai instead.

So, no, we cannot agree with the waitron who airily said the restaurant’s roast hāpuku was sustainably fished here in Aotearoa, either commercially or recreationally.

CAN WE TRANSLOCATE FISH INTO THE OCEAN LIKE WE DO KIWI INTO A FOREST? New Zealand is recognised as a world leader in the relocation and reintroduction of endangered birds into protected sanctuaries, and we are justly proud of that.

The pages of this magazine have been full of these powerful and heart-warming stories for decades.

Yet in te ao whāomoomo, our world of conservation, very little is known of similar initiatives in saltwater fish species conservation.

Why don’t we work to relocate key species such hāpuku groper and let them grow in marine reserve areas?

“The answer is simple – it’s because we eat them,” says marine ecologist Dr Nick Shears, of the University of Auckland.

But then he quickly gets serious – as scientists are wont to do – because it’s a bit more complex than that.

Scientists are attempting to breed native marine fish species in different parts of the country. It’s not an easy task (see overleaf).

Several of these projects are being carried out because of the potential for aquaculture – breeding hāpuku, kingfish, or shellfish for eating.

Could these aquaculture initiatives also help the conservation of endangered marine and freshwater species? What are the risks and possible pitfalls? →

RETURNING HĀPUKU TO THE “BAY OF EMPTY” Kaumātua from Mōtītī island remember a time when the Bay of Plenty was full of marine life, including plentiful groper.

In 2018, Umuhuri Matehaere, the Umuhuri Matehaere, chair of the Mōtītī Rohe Moana Trust, chair of the Mōtītī Rohe told this magazine how fishing off the Moana Trust in 2018. island used to be easy day or night.

But the stocks started to disappear after the arrival of fishing trawlers and recreational fishers in the 1950s.

“As a boy, I would go down and collect seafood three times a week. We’d collect pāua, kina, limpets, pūpū, crabs, and crayfish. They were abundant,” he said.

“At the age of 12, I’d grab them – I didn’t have a mask or anything – I’d grab the antennae. There were unbelievable numbers of them. In some areas, we didn’t even need to get our feet wet.

“Today, we call it the Bay of Empty. The comparison there is a big difference. I’m going back 60 years. During that time, its seafood has been depleted significantly.

Now our young people dive, and they can’t find the fish.

“There’s no hāpuku. It’s all gone. Snapper and tarakihi are now much smaller than they were. It makes me sad and angry.”

The Ngāti Awa hapū of Ngāti Maumoana, Ngāti Makerewai, and Ngāti Takahanga on Mōtītī Island have worked for years to establish a marine protection network within their rohe – including the Astrolabe Reef, where the container ship Rena grounded in 2011.

Recently, following a landmark legal case and approval from the government, new marine protected areas have been introduced, including a 10-year no-take rāhui within a mile circumference of the Astrolabe and half a dozen other reefs. This still allows for rodand-reel fishing and traditional shellfish gathering for residents on the island.

The purpose is the restoration of taonga species to their marine rohe, including hāpuku.

“A profitable day’s fishing”: Hāpuku caught outside Auckland Harbour, 1913.

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19130724-50-3 Summer 2021

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pecies reintroductions are an accepted part of terrestrial conservation, but they are pretty much unheard of in the marine space.

Bruce Hartill, principal scientist for fisheries at NIWA, says this is because reintroductions on land are far easier to achieve for conservation purposes.

“Terrestrial animals mostly raise their offspring, but fish mostly broadcast their eggs, so there is very limited connection between adults and offspring,” he said.

Darren Parsons, another NIWA marine scientist, adds: “The advantage that terrestrial restoration has is that the area being restored won’t also be open to the trees being harvested immediately after planting.”

Finfish aquaculture is a small industry currently in New Zealand, with only king salmon being farmed commercially for food.

NIWA has an experimental hatchery up at Bream Bay in Northland, breeding hāpuku and kingfish for aquaculture.

Hāpuku grows quite quickly in their first year, making them a good aquaculture candidate, and one that fetches a high price too.

Could we also release excess fish into reserves as a conservation action?

“They may not stay,” says Andrew Jeffs. “We know so little about them. There is no academic literature on this subject.

“We should just stop fishing them and let the populations recover. Hāpuku are a key predatory species in coastal areas that we have fished out and are continuing to do so.

“The fishery is also associated with other unsustainable practices, such as the killing of some of the 13,000 seabirds the fishing industry is estimated to kill every year.”

But for other marine species, such as green-lipped mussels, where we have destroyed populations and they are not recovering (see overleaf), there is an argument for restoration intervention, adds Andrew.

NIWA has an experimental hatchery up at Bream Bay in Northland, breeding hāpuku and kingfish for aquaculture.

Pictured is NIWA scientist Andrew Forsythe with some of the baby groper.

Dave Allen

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Tank-bred kingfish.

NIWA

REWILDING WITH JUVENILE FISH Releasing juveniles into the wild ocean to augment numbers for eating, rather than conservation or habitat restoration, has taken place overseas.

Here in Aotearoa, there have been a few ad hoc cases of fish reintroductions but no systematic, scientific data-driven programme to study their impacts.

For example, Moana-Pacific fisheries used to seed the waters around Kawau Island with juvenile snapper raised in sea cages at Bon Accord Harbour, in advance of the (now discontinued) Furuno Fishing Competition.

A load of tank-bred kingfish were released by NIWA off the wharves at NorthPort at the mouth of Whangārei Harbour, in the 1990s.

They survived, with some sticking around the area – divers would later recognise them at a wellfrequented sponge garden nearby because of their distinctive deformed “wonky” lower jaws, something that happened in their captive breeding.

Plant & Food in Nelson started releasing tens of thousands of captively reared snapper into Tasman Bay, near Nelson, in 2005. The addition of baby snapper in subsequent years provided a healthy boost to population numbers and has been linked to a revitalisation of the local fishery, according to a Stuff article in 2016.

But these releases took place so the fish could be caught for eating in the future – not for the primary purpose of conservation.

Research has proven that it costs far more to artificially grow the fish, then release them, than to simply allow their natural populations to recover, adds Andrew Jeffs.

But what happens if natural populations of groper don’t bounce back even after a fishing moratorium?

For example, hāpuku haven’t returned to New Zealand’s oldest marine protected area, Goat Island, despite 50 years of no fishing there.

Should we be looking to rewild Goat Island marine reserve by releasing thousands of baby groper?

Scientists urge caution until more data is available.

“I would have reservations that this would be successful for hāpuku,” says NIWA marine scientist Richard O’Driscoll.

“The question you would need to ask is what is causing the extinction of hāpuku inshore. Your assumption is that this is due to lack of juveniles ‘recruiting’ into these areas.

“To be successful, reintroduced juveniles would then need to remain in the area of reintroduction, survive until they grow through to maturity, and reproduce so their progeny return to the inshore area.

“I doubt these criteria would be met, given the likelihood of fish movement, the dispersal of eggs, larvae, and young fish, and how juvenile hāpuku are pelagic – that is, occurring in surface waters.

“I’d suggest the best method to re-establish hāpuku in the inshore would be for there to be a large increase in abundance of existing ‘wild’ natural populations.

“This would require management intervention, such as reduction in recreational and commercial fishing.”

So, to restore the wild stocks of hāpuku, we need to stop catching so much of them to allow the populations to recover naturally. And for rewilding efforts to succeed, we need to know more about the groper’s life cycle and habitat requirements.

“I agree that the main prerequisite for rebuilding inshore hāpuku populations would be to constrain commercial and recreational catches to a level that would allow that,” adds Bruce Hartill.

The last word in this hāpuku-go-round goes to Andrew Forsythe, the aquaculture manager at NIWA, who says at this point their focus is to breed hāpuku for eating and not for rewilding the ocean.

“Our objective is to develop these species for commercial farming in New Zealand. We are not

engaged in any attempts to augment wild stocks through the release of captive bred fish.

“Even though we are growing native species, it is our intent to ensure there is no interaction between the fish we farm and wild stocks. To this end, we are particularly careful to minimise any risk of ‘escape’ from our systems.”

We’re back to where we started. Breeding native saltwater fish is for the purposes of eating them.

It’s clear much more research is needed to establish the risks and benefits of carrying out marine reintroductions of native species for conservation purposes.

Crayfish and kina.

Alex Stammers

REWILDING KŌURA AT WAIHEKE ISLAND While no-one has tried placing hāpuka in the water at Goat Island, there is an initiative under way to look at the possibility of returning kōura or saltwater crayfish to the northern shore of Waiheke Island.

→

The islands are calling...

Tiritiri Matangi Island and Rotoroa Island After a too many days spent at home this winter the Hauraki Gulf can’t wait to welcome you back!

Visit Tiritiri Matangi Island or Rotoroa Island this summer and find yourself walking through native forests, relaxing on picturesque beaches and spotting rare and endangered wildlife at every turn.

Want to really learn about the native flora and fauna?

Book a guided tour with an island ranger and they’ll help you spot colourful birdlife and native plants along the way.

Book your return ferry and tour

Summer 2021

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COVER

Diver Josh Fretwell swims along a transect line looking for crayfish in the Hauraki Gulf.

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The Waiheke Marine Project is building on research initially commissioned by the Friends of the Hauraki Gulf, as part of its 10-year-long campaign to establish a new marine reserve there.

In 2013, the University of Auckland Underwater Club, under the direction of the late, great marine biologist Roger Grace, surveyed 18 sites of what looked like perfect crayfish habitat. They found no kōura.

Adam Whatton, the owner of the Waiheke Dive shop, reports that, since then, his staff and clients have undertaken 4000 dives in the area and found only four small crayfish.

In June 2021, the Waiheke Marine Project widened the search to more sites. A survey was organised by Adam and Craig Thorburn, a life-long Craig Thorburn passionate diver, marine biologist, and designer of aquariums for a worldwide clientele.

Craig sees this as an “incredible opportunity” to make a controlled study of the effects of the rāhui placed around Waiheke earlier this year by Ngāti Paoa.

This rāhui, he says, makes Waiheke effectively “the biggest cray reserve in New Zealand”. But he adds the protection needs to last longer than the proposed three years, because the crayfish larvae spend possibly two years offshore before returning.

“Recruitment is the critical issue, and that may not happen successfully if the cray population remains below critical mass. If the spawning biomass is gone, the recovery of the population needs more than just time.”

Trouble is, we don’t know what that critical mass is.

In Craig’s view, this project is a way to do research and learn more about the life cycle of kōura.

“A rewilding programme needs a community to drive it – and Waiheke has that.”

It is early days yet. The process of reintroducing kōura will need, as Craig points out, support from mana whenua and permits from relevant government agencies.

He says there have been various successful reintroductions of crayfish in South Australia, where some quite good home territories for crayfish have been established in dedicated sanctuaries.

Craig, Adam, and their 85 registered divers will be sharing their crayfish findings with the Waiheke and wider community.

His thoughts on the subject of marine species reintroductions? “The best thing to do is start.”

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RESTORING MUSSEL BEDS Groups like Revive Our Gulf, The Nature Conservancy, and local iwi are restoring green-lipped mussel beds in the Hauraki Gulf for their ecosystem services and mauri they represent.

Massive harvesting of mussels began in the early 1900s and wiped out the natural mussel beds in the Firth of Forth and in the wider Gulf.

Andrew Jeffs says the newly restored mussel beds will become critically important habitat for juvenile fish, especially bottom-feeding species.

He likens the actions of these marine groups to e-NGOs, such as Forest & Bird and the Native Forest Action Council, who in the 1980s sold the idea of replanting native forests so that today it is now seen as the norm.

In the next issue, Alex Stone looks at whether it’s a good idea to farm freshwater native fish to rewild our rivers.

Healthy mussels growing in the Hauraki Gulf.

Darryl Torckler

BOLD FISHERIES REFORM NEEDED Sadly, the government continues to allow commercial fishers to take more fish out of the ocean than can be sustained, as our hāpuku story shows. Bottom trawling, set-netting, and long-lining are also unnecessarily killing seabirds, including critically endangered albatrosses. There are no areas in New Zealand’s territorial waters where fishing is not allowed.

Sedimentation and land use also affects inshore ocean ecosystems. Forest & Bird wants to see the new Minister for Oceans introduce legislative and marine policy reform that moves New Zealand faster towards an ecosystem-based management of fisheries, rather than the current system that manages for individual fish stocks. This should include greater protection from non-fisheries habitat threats and the values and aspirations of iwi and hapū.

For more on our marine campaigns, go to www.forestandbird.org.nz/what-we-do/oceans.

F R E S H WAT E R

WETLANDS FOR

Wellbeing

Aerial view of the Taieri Scroll Plain, a large and unique New Zealand wetland in the upper reaches of the Taieri River, Maniototo, Otago.

Rob Suisted

Forest & Bird recently wrote to Environment Minister David Parker objecting to his Ministry’s plans to backtrack on crucial freshwater reforms.

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he proposal to allow mining, quarrying, landfills, and urban development activities to destroy wetlands was quietly released in a September consultation document called Managing our Wetlands.

The Ministry for the Environment proposed “additional consenting pathways” for a range of industries, giving them the ability to destroy New Zealand’s remaining 10% of native wetland habitats.

The new proposal would have far-reaching implications for wetlands across Aotearoa. It would enable new rubbish dumps to destroy wetlands, urban development to drain waterways, and hundreds of quarries around the country to bulldoze through fragile native wetland ecosystems.

The changes further dilute the definition of a natural wetland, leaving a path open for drainage, earthworks, and vegetation clearance in wetlands found in pasture.

Some internationally significant ephemeral wetlands that support large numbers of waterbirds may not be defined as natural wetlands at all.

“This proposal makes a mockery of attempts made to address the loss of wetlands and the degraded state of freshwater in New Zealand. We will fight this all the way,” said Forest & Bird chief executive Kevin Hague.

“It’s particularly outrageous that in a climate emergency we’re having to even discuss a special pathway allowing coal mining to further destroy wetlands.”

This policy is also contrary to the Climate Commission’s advice on the need to protect wetlands. It recommended reducing landfills, not building more.

Wetlands are climate heroes that provide a number of important ecosystem services, including storing

carbon, reducing flooding risks, and providing habitat for native species. Peatlands are more powerful than tropical forests at absorbing carbon.

Last year, the new National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management made most earthworks within or near a natural wetland a prohibited activity, if those works were likely to drain the wetland.

“These new rules, which we gained only a year ago, are absolutely crucial in turning around the loss of wetlands,” added Kevin.

“Removing freshwater protection could allow coal companies to carry out widespread destruction of these ecosystems, as well as locking the world into a high greenhouse gas emissions.”

The public consultation period closed at the end of October. Thank you to the 6000 of you who made a submission on Forest & Bird’s website asking the government to rethink these ill-advised proposals. Our legal team has also made a detailed submission.

SAVE OUR WETLANDS

Donate today and help stop wetland destruction. Forest & Bird wants the government to adopt a National Wetland Restoration Plan and restore New Zealand’s once healthy freshwater taonga. Your gift will help fund our advocacy work, hold decision-makers to account, and show ministers the amazing ability that healthy wetlands have to counter the effects of climate change. To make a gift, go LAST CHANCE TO to www.forestandbird.org. SAVE OUR WONDERFUL nz/support-us/appeals/ save-our-wetlands.

WETLANDS Summer 2021

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BIODIVERSITY

New Zealand’s skinks and geckos are very unusual in that they give birth to live young. Jewelled gecko mother and baby.

Carey Knox

Witnessing an

extraordinary birth Getting up close to a live lizard delivery inspired Kāpiti midwife Sahra Kress to work towards a life-sustaining future for all animals on Earth.

L

ast year, after more than a decade of maternity aid work in various remote Pacific Islands, I came home for the last time. Given climate change and our ecological crisis, I worry about the bleak future for every child whose birth I attend.

So, when I heard about a group of volunteers who were working to restore wetlands and plant natives in the reserve at the edge of my village on the Kāpiti Coast, I decided to plant a tree for every baby I delivered.

Through this restoration work, I became involved with a potential lizard sanctuary project in the reserve.

I became extremely interested in New Zealand geckos and skinks, and their amazing viviparous reproductive strategy – reptiles who give birth to live young rather than eggs.

I was particularly fascinated by the question of whether lizards have placentas (they do and quite a developmentally complex reproductive process). I decided to go see what skinks and geckos they have at Ngā Manu, our local ecosanctuary.

When I arrived, I asked the front desk staffer about the lizards, and she confirmed that geckos were in the display cases just outside. I wandered over, and, as the gorgeous afternoon light poured across the glass, it was easy to see the green barking geckos sunning themselves in the warmth. I had never seen them so close and enjoyed inspecting the detail of their

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beautiful emerald scales, their fine narrow tapering toes without pads, and their long powerful tails.

Under one of them, off to the side, I noted a strange extra feature. Just under the abdomen, at the juncture of the tail, there was this strange pinky-brown thing.

It looked a bit like a blob, and my mind inadvertently thought “that looks like a placental membrane”. And the gecko was heaving.

I watched in fascination, feeling that I was witnessing something altogether familiar ... could it be?

That must be a membrane sac. And there, just behind her, emerged the tiniest, fragile little baby. Absolutely delicate, covered in reddish mucus and very wet, about 2cm long, it looked to me.

Sahra watched this barking gecko give birth to a live baby gecko (green arrow) at Ngā Manu Nature Reserve.

Sahra Kress

I snapped a few quick photos, then rushed back to the front desk to ask the staffer whether she knew that they had a gecko delivering. She immediately called in all the rangers, and we watched, marvelling as the tiny gecko baby uncurled its miniscule tongue, flicked its tiny needle-like tail. The baby had the same white facial markings as the mother around its mouth, and initially the mother had turned and seemed to sniff or nuzzle it a bit. Would there be a second baby still? They often deliver twins.

Over the next hour, visitors became alerted to this special event, and the rangers prepared a little creche for the baby, to help nurture it in its own environment.

I was told that seeing a gecko giving birth was indeed a very rare occurrence. I left feeling utterly delighted, so privileged to have seen this special birth. What an extraordinary thing to have witnessed.

Realising the extremely low annual successful reproductive rates of lizards led me to delve into what literature I could find on their reproduction. All New Zealand geckos and skinks (except the egg-laying skink) are viviparous, a rare reproductive strategy for lizards. Instead of embryos completing their development outside their mother’s body in shelled eggs, they develop fully inside the mother, who then gives birth to live young.

Their pregnancies last between three months and more than 14 months, being generally longer in cold climates or alpine areas, where some gecko species may give birth only every two or three years. Some New Zealand geckos can retain fully formed offspring inutero over winter and start the ovulation process prior to the pregnancy ending. In both the wild and captivity, there are high rates of failure in embryonic development, resulting in high numbers of abortions and “stillbirths”, as well as over-gestated fetuses that don’t survive.

New Zealand geckos live to at least 30 years, and some species have been recorded living to over 50 years in the wild. The upper limit of longevity is unknown for most species, so it is possible that some species live even longer than humans do. The time for baby lizards to reach sexual maturity ranges from two years to eight years from birth for cold climate species.

Despite having such challenges with their reproductive process, our lizards have the amazing ability to regrow their tails if severed, which is very useful as they store most of their fat stores for winter in their tails.

There is increasing evidence that certain species of New Zealand lizards show some form of parental care or at least tolerance of their young. Some geckos live in family groups in the wild. This was particularly interesting for me to learn about, having watched the mother gecko’s behaviour after her baby was born at Ngā Manu. However, because of the need to carefully protect all newborn lizard babies, breeding programmes that nurture the babies separately

A pregnant female northern grass skink in Wellington.

Kyle Bland

Barking gecko.

Carey Knox

Within hours of entering the world, young geckos begin their first slough, shedding their skin to emerge even more brightly coloured than before. A 12-hour-old green gecko.

Dylan van Winkel

make good sense to minimise all potential risk from unpredictable adult behaviour.

This experience has highlighted for me why there is a significant and urgent need to strengthen and invest in lizard conservation programmes and the restoration of native lizard habitats. The conservation work I’ve been doing has helped reinspire my work as a midwife, feeling that I can contribute in some small way to protecting the environment for children and a lifesustaining future.

For more fascinating facts about lizard reproduction, see https://theconversation.com/lizards-helpus-find-out-which-came-first-the-baby-or-theegg-29954.

Summer 2021

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C L I M AT E

Rising sea levels have led to “ghost forests” in the USA, such as this one at Nags Head Woods.

North Carolina wetlands

TIME TO TALK ADAPTATION?

Conservationists are facing difficult questions as nature struggles to survive our warming planet. Should we be thinking about radical adaptation as well as mitigation?

Jane Young

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ne of the hardest things to grasp about climate change – on both an emotional and intellectual level – is that the devastating consequences are already locked into the system.

This is not an excuse for throwing up our hands in despair, but it does mean we need to face up to facts and deal with adaptation as well as mitigation.

When climate change occurred in the past, it was often possible for plant and animal populations to shift their distribution so that they could stay within their comfort zones.

Humans changed all that. Less than a quarter of the planet’s landmass remains as wilderness, which is often highly fragmented. Cities, highways, and farmland all present formidable barriers to the movement of wildlife.

Alpine lizards such as the black-eyed gecko may need to be translocated in the future to save them from extinction in the face of global warming.

Carey Knox

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If we can’t reverse the relentless human impact on natural ecosystems, can we at least offer a helping hand to ecosystems struggling to adapt to climate change?

Or are we more likely to just make a bad situation worse?

There’s no shortage of debates around the world about the role of conservation in the age of climate change.

Emily Ury is an ecologist studying the response of North Carolina’s wetlands to sea-level rise. As she travels around her research area, she sees more and more evidence of trees that are dead or dying because of the increased salinity.

Elsewhere in the US, huge swathes of coastal forest from Maine to Florida are succumbing to this insidious effect of climate change. Locally, they are known as “ghost forests”.

In North Carolina, one radical adaptive management approach has been suggested – to introduce salttolerant marsh plants in threatened freshwater wetland zones.

For those who believe we should try to preserve ecosystems just as they are – or were – this strategy goes against the grain.

But if forests are dying anyway, having a salt marsh is a better outcome than allowing a wetland to be reduced to shallow open water, which doesn’t provide the many ecological benefits of a salt marsh, such as storing carbon and enhancing water quality.

Further north, in Maryland’s Plum Creek preserve,

thousands of longleaf pine seedlings have been planted, even though the species isn’t native to the US state. They’re part of an experiment to see if human intervention could help the pine migrate north as climate change alters the plant’s natural range.

Some ecologists oppose this strategy, warning of unintended consequences and claiming that “assisted migration” is tantamount to ecological gambling.

Restoration ecologists, however, may believe that plants simply can’t move fast enough to keep up with the rate at which the climate is changing.

Here in New Zealand, translocations are more likely to be carried out to protect an endangered species from introduced predators rather than from the effects of climate disruption.

But that may change in the future. For example, many of our coastal ecosystems, such as estuaries and marshes, are already under severe human-caused stress from sedimentation, nutrient overload, and waste pollution.

Pekepeka long-tailed bats may need to be moved to cooler areas if New Zealand’s winters keep on warming.

Sea-level rise will result in habitat loss for even more species as humans defend their assets and infrastructure, resulting in “coastal squeeze”.

About half of New Zealand’s freshwater fish species don’t alternate between marine and freshwater habitats.

This means that, if river or lake temperatures rise above the animals’ tolerance limits, they are likely to be effectively marooned.

Fish translocations to keep ahead of climate change might become a reality, but the invertebrates they feed on could also be in trouble. Stoneflies, for example, don’t cope well with heat stress, and if they live in a stream flowing through pasture rather than through shady forest then the temperature may reach lethal limits for them.

Terrestrial organisms also face a range of problems because of climate change.

New Zealand bats are unusually active in winter compared with other bats that live in temperate regions.

As winters get warmer, they may become even more active and so need more food at a time when insects may be scarce. Translocations to cooler areas might help

Rare coastal habitats such as Lake Wilkie’s bog lake ecosystem in the Catlins, Southland, are at risk from sea-level rise.

Caroline Wood

overcome the problem, at least in the short term.

The alpine area is a rich source of biodiversity, facing a variety of threats resulting from climate change. An unusual number of New Zealand lizard species are cool adapted, including the black-eyed gecko, whose habitat is bluffs 1300m–2200m above sea level in the north of the South Island.

At present, the gecko may be safe in its chilly alpine fortress, but as conditions warm and predators inevitably arrive what then?

Translocations in the face of climate change may be band-aid solutions. We can’t turn back the clock. But perhaps a focus on what we stand to lose will spur us into making greater efforts to mitigate the emissions that cause the problem in the first place.

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Summer 2021

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HISTORY

Rei Hamon’s original black and white artwork Serene was recoloured for the cover of Lorde’s Te Ao Mārama EP [bottom right].

REI HAMON THE LORDE CONNECTION

Lorde worked with the family of late Māori artist and environmental activist Rei Hamon to create the cover of her new EP, Te Ao Mārama, with half the royalties going to Forest & Bird. Caroline Wood

E

arlier this year, the Hamon whānau received a phone call from Lorde’s people asking if they would be open to licensing one of their koro’s artworks for the Grammy award-winning singer’s new project, a te reo translation of five songs from her Solar Power album.

Lorde wanted to use Rei Hamon’s iconic 1975 artwork Serene, which features Mount Taranaki reflected in a pool surrounded by mānuka, kōwhai, and clematis, for the Te Ao Mārama EP’s cover.

The Māori artist and environmental activist (1916–2008, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga a Māhaki) was renowned for his neo-impressionist pointillist paintings, created by applying thousands of dots of colour to a canvas.

His granddaughter Huia Hamon, and her father Awanui, worked with

Huia Hamon

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Forest & Bird Te Reo o te Taiao

Lorde and her manager over a few months to make sure the project would have the right tikanga and continue her koro’s artistic and conservation legacy.

“It was very important for us to know and understand why they wanted to add our koro’s artwork,” explains Huia, who is a musician and artist.

“They let us know very early on that all the proceeds were to go to charities who were advocating for the rights of our fauna, manu birds, ngangara insects, and native ngahere forest.

“We put forward two organisations that Rei contributed to – one being Forest & Bird, who will receive half of the royalties from this EP.” Rei had the same kaupapa about the forest and te ao Māori as Ella (Lorde), and this was one of the reasons the Hamon whānau

Rei Hamon

allowed them to license part of the image of Serene.

“The vignette and colouration of the original black and white artwork has created a new dynamic, and our Papa was not shy of colour, as he often voiced to us that he wished he had done more artwork in colour,” adds Huia.

Te Ao Mārama is a five-song companion piece to Lorde’s third studio album Solar Power. The tracks were translated from the English originals and are sung entirely in te reo Māori.

“Many things revealed themselves slowly to me while I was making this album, but the main realisation by far was that much of my value system around caring for and listening to the natural world comes from traditional Māori principles,” Lorde said when it was released.

“There’s a word for it in te reo: kaitiakitanga, meaning ‘guardianship or caregiving for the sky, sea and land’. I’m not Māori, but all New Zealanders grow up with elements of this worldview.

“Te ao Māori and tikanga Māori are a big part of why people intuit our country to be kind of ‘magical’.

I’m someone who represents New Zealand globally in a way, and, in making an album about where I’m

from, it was important to me to be able to say: this makes us who we are down here.”

Lorde collaborated with leading te reo practitioners, including Sir Tīmoti Kāretu, Dame Hinewehi Mohi, Hana Mereraiha, and Hēmi Kelly. Kiwi musicians Bic Runga and Marlon Williams also feature on the tracks.

While some Māori have criticised Lorde, saying her EP project was “tokenism”, those who worked with her say she approached it with the right attitude and they hope it will result in more people embracing te reo and Māori culture.

“We tautoko support everyone speaking te reo Māori. We hope this encourages people who are not yet on their journey to start,” adds Huia.

“This includes our own whānau, who were not brought up with te reo Māori and are all in the process of relearning through waiata and also online courses.” Te Ao Mārama’s royalties will be split between Forest & Bird and Te Hua Kawariki Charitable Trust, in the Hokianga.

Lorde.

Ophelia Mikkelson Jones

In 1961, Rei Hamon was manager of the Thames Sawmilling Company and was given the job of supervising the milling of a large kauri above Tapu. He later said: “When that tree fell, it had been standing there for maybe 1000 years…

I went back later to where it had been standing, and there were birds fluttering around there, kākā and kererū, that had nested in that tree for generations.

That was the finish. I handed in my resignation. I vowed never to fell another healthy tree.” Rei pictured next to a huge tree that was never felled, the “Hamon kauri”.

Weekly News

INSPIRED BY NATURE Rei Hamon joined Forest & Bird in 1970 to defend kōkako and kauri.

Michael Pringle

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ei Hamon CBE was a Gisborne-born artist who became a staunch defender of the environment. He lived in Waiomu on the Coromandel Peninsula for much of his life.

The inspiration for his art was wildlife, the native birds of New Zealand, and its natural wonders.

Starting out in life as a logger, by the late 1950s he had come to see that the heedless destruction of our native forest was wrong, and he began to campaign for its preservation.

In particular, he wanted to protect what remained of Coromandel’s magnificent kauri forests and also the kōkako, which at that time still lived on the peninsula.

In May 1970, Rei wrote to John Jerram, chairman of Forest & Bird’s Auckland Branch, drawing his attention to the huge stand of kauri that forest millers were taking out in the headwaters of the Manaia stream.

He had seen huge trees, of 40ft girth or larger, fall to the axe. The Society responded to Rei’s call and supported his campaign.

In December 1970, Rei wrote to the New Zealand Herald making another appeal to stop the milling: “If the government is allowed to continue removing this stand of kauri, it will be a tragedy of the first magnitude for the people of New Zealand,” he wrote.

As a result, in February 1971, the Minister of Forests Duncan MacIntyre announced the end of all kauri milling at Manaia and the declaration of a forest sanctuary.

Today, its 400 kauri are still protected, and some of them are more than 1500 years old.

Rei joined Forest & Bird in 1970 and started advocating for kōkako.

In 1973, he visited Forest & Bird branches to talk about the rapidly disappearing forest species, and he was soon in demand for his talks, which included slides and taped bird calls.

The artist raised funds for Forest & Bird’s “Save the kōkako campaign” by donating some of his popular artworks for raffles.

When he died in 2008, obituary writers made much mention of his environmental commitment.

Today, high in the Manaia block’s forest, a majestic kauri is still known as the “Hamon kauri”.

It is a fitting tribute to his life’s conservation mahi protecting Aotearoa’s natural heritage.

The documentary Man of Nature, produced by Huia Hamon’s Kog Studio and supported by NZ On Air and Te Māngai Pāho, explores Rei Hamon’s life and environmental work – go to: www.hamonart.com.

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F R E S H WAT E R

Caspian terns on the Rakahuri-Ashley Estuary.

Steve Attwood

BRAIDED BIRDLIFE A huge flood turned out to be good and bad news for river birds in North Canterbury’s Rakahuri-Ashley River.

Steve Attwood

W

hen Canterbury experienced one-in-200year flooding earlier this year, the immediate focus was on the devastating human impacts of the event – roads and bridges out, homes destroyed, people evacuated, valuable land and stock lost.

However, for the wildlife of the Rakahuri-Ashley River, the extreme-level floods have proved mixed blessings. The high flows ripped out unwanted weeds and restored the natural river landscape. The channels of water now weaving through weed-free alluvial shingle islands are a boost for braided river birds who need this kind of clean habitat to nest on.

But the flood is also thought to have obliterated the natural layers of insect and other invertebrate habitat in the river, so there isn’t a lot of food available for them.

This may explain why, in October, the number of birds was low on the river. It’s not known how long it will take for the river to recover.

Rakahuri-Ashley stems from Canterbury’s foothills, where it is mostly dependent on annual rainfall to clean out the riverbed. But, for more than five years, rainfall in the river’s catchment has been insufficient to produce floods of the strength needed to clear the river fairway of all its unwanted plant growth. That all changed in the 48 hours from 31 May, when a record-level rainstorm saw the Rakahuri-Ashley go from a flow of four cubic metres per second to more than 960. A half decade and more of invasive weeds were swept away, stripping

large areas back to clean shingle and restoring a network of braided channels.

This allowed rapid encroachment into the riverbed of invasive introduced weeds such as yellow lupin, gorse, and broom, dramatically reducing the area of clean shingle the braided river birds require for nesting and providing cover for introduced predators.

Rare species that nest on this small, but important, river include ngutuparore wrybill, tarāpuka black-billed gull, and tarapirohe black-fronted tern.

Research shows a strong correlation between breeding numbers and the amount of weed in their habitat. Breeding success is higher in years with clean weed-free shingle available for nesting. So introduced weeds are emerging as perhaps the biggest factor on braided river bird breeding success, maybe even more important than the control of introduced mammals.

To create some clear areas for the birds to nest, volunteers for the Ashley-Rakahuri Rivercare Group, supported by local contractors and Environment Canterbury (Ecan), have given many hours of labour prior to each breeding season, clearing islands within the river’s braids.

The team had been about to mechanically clear a further 64ha of weedy islands. With the floods doing the job for them, the group is now working on a strategy to stop the weeds growing again.

The huge May flood cleared weeds from the Rakahuri-Ashley River and estuary (pictured), creating nice clean nesting habitat.

Steve Attwood

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Fotser & Bidr

Te Reo o te Taiao

TALE OF TWO HALVES

Meanwhile, down at the Rakahuri-Ashley Estuary, next to the coast, there have also been wins and losses for local birdlife following the June floods.

The estuary is a wetland of international importance and regarded as one of the finest birding habitats on the east coast of the South Island, with some 115 different species of birds recorded there.

These include all the braided river species, including the highly threatened kakī black stilt, which uses the estuary as a wintering-over spot and/or a feeding-up site during their seasonal migrations.

Until June’s floods, low river flows had seen the Ashley veer well to the north and enter the sea opposite the point where Saltwater Creek comes into the estuary, creating a long barrier of sand dunes, shell, and shingle banks stretching northward from the Waikuku Beach settlement.

This relatively stable area was used for nesting by birds such as the torea pango variable oystercatcher, karoro southern black-backed gull, and tara white-fronted tern. Weed-free banks within the estuary were used by pohowera banded dotterel and terns as places to nest.

During the flood, the river changed direction and punched straight out to sea opposite its entry into the estuary, obliterating a large area of the dunes and shell/ shingle banks where the gulls, terns, and oystercatchers bred.

Nesting male banded dotterel next to a lupin, an introduced weed that has smothered parts of the river bed and estuary.

Steve Attwood

REVIVING OUR ZOMBIE RIVERS

Recent floods have also focused public attention on another issue that challenges those responsible for flood protection and the enhancement of Canterbury’s braided river environments.

Freshwater campaign groups, including Forest & Bird, are saying human efforts to control flooding in the South Island’s braided rivers are actually contributing to the severity of floods during major events.

At the same time, researchers point to the fact that stop-banks and flood protection planting are “strangling” braided rivers during normal flow periods, often confining them to single-channel fairways.

“Instead of giving the rivers room to move, single channels reduce groundwater recharge and increase sediment loads in the river,” says Annabeth Cohen, Forest & Bird’s freshwater advocate.

“The increased speed of water flow also changes the flora and fauna that are found in the waterway.”

Single-channel rivers have fewer places where braided river birds can breed, and they are more vulnerable to pest predation.

→

Aerial view of the Rakahuri-Ashley River and Estuary, North Canterbury, before the June 2021 flood.

The Ashley-Rakahuri Rivercare Group

However, north of this new, much-widened mouth, a substantial breeding territory for these birds remains, and the new mouth means much of this area is now far less accessible for people, their dogs, off-road vehicles, and introduced predators radiating out from the Waikuku Beach settlement.

Previously, much of the above-the-high-tideline area of the estuary had, like the river, become smothered with invasive weeds. These are now clear, and the floods returned the estuary to an interweaving variety of shingle, shell, and sand banks and islands, along with extensively cleared tidal mud flats.

Today, there is far more nesting and feeding habitat for braided river birds, as well as enhanced natural feeding, nesting, and roosting areas for the large variety of birds that reside at, or seasonally visit, the estuary.

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Volunteers from the Ashley-Rakahuri Rivercare Group removing invasive lupins from the river bed.

→

Forcing braided rivers into the “solitary confinement” of single channels bounded by flood protection works is turning them into what University of Waikato’s Professor James Brasington calls “zombie” rivers.

He says we are too often preventing these rivers from finding their own course and simply treating them as a way of getting excess water out to sea as fast as possible.

Planting willows and poplars as a “natural” way to hold rivers in place has exacerbated the issue, creating problems for freshwater ecosystems, including habitat for braided river birds. It has also made these rivers prone to catastrophic effects during flooding events.

“If we put our rivers into straightjackets, they lose the diversity of form and process that are fundamental to the creation of thriving ecosystems,” says Brassington.

“Instead, we should make space for rivers to erode their corridors and flood naturally in areas that are of less value, which will, in turn, reduce risks in more sensitive areas. We must work with natural processes to reduce the flood risk and support healthy river ecosystems.”

Annabeth Cohen agrees: “Flooding is normal and will increase in frequency and intensity because of climate change. But we can plan to provide room for rivers to flow and flood.

“This is what has made much of our farming land fertile over the millennia – distribution of nutrients through floods.

“Our challenge now is to understand floods and ask ourselves if we can strike a balance between giving our waterways the space to meander while still maintaining necessary protections for existing infrastructure and livelihoods.”

Godwits on the RakahuriAshley Estuary.

Steve Attwood

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Forest & Bird Te Reo o te Taiao

Forest & Bird has been asking ECan to rethink braided river management and shift away from traditional hard-engineering solutions towards a more long-term, holistic approach, making room for rivers, restoring flood plains, and improving natural character to create climate resilience and to improve habitat opportunities for native species.

There is opposition from some farmers to this approach because they simply want the rivers contained back in their channels.

Meanwhile, the braided river birds have begun to return, with wrybill and banded dotterels the first arrivals spotted in early August. They will feed up in the estuary before distributing from there to the Rakahuri-Ashley River and Canterbury’s other braided rivers.

The Ashley-Rakahuri Rivercare Group will be watching the rivers with interest to see whether Mother Nature has, indeed, created a new environment that might see a boost in fledgling chick numbers in future breeding seasons.

Black-billed gull and chick.

Steve Attwood

This female kakī is a regular on the Rakahuri-Ashley Estuary.

Steve Attwood

Steve Attwood is a wildlife photographer, birdwatching guide, passionate conservationist, and long-time Forest & Bird member. Steve recently established a new business called Auldwood Birds. He takes birdwatchers to the Rakahuri-Ashley Estuary, in North Canterbury, and is the only licensed guide on the Hinewai Reserve, on Banks Peninsula – see www.auldwoodbirds.kiwi.

BRANCH PROJECT

RAT TUCKER RESEARCH

BOOSTS MOHUA

Composite image.

Makarora River.

Ian Turnbull Mohua.

Jake Osborne

Forest & Bird’s Central Otago Lakes Branch wanted to find out why some of their traps caught more rats than others. Ian Turnbull

I

n 1998, members of our Central Otago Lakes Branch became concerned about the declining numbers of mohua in the beech forests surrounding the Makarora River, north of Lake Wanaka.

Together with DOC, they established some trap lines, and, 23 years later, the project is still going strong. We think there are about 100 mohua within our project area.

For a while, it was touch and go. Mohua numbers crashed in 2011 after a beech mast triggered a plague of rats. But recent monitoring by the Department of Conservation shows they are back up to 2011 levels.

Trapping alone would not have saved the species – two DOCorganised Tiakina Ngā Manu 1080 operations have been critical in keeping the population alive. But trapping continues to bridge the gap between operations.

Forest & Bird conservation manager Rick Zwaan checks a Makarora trap.

Ian Turnbull

We have 50 volunteers, 650 traps protecting 1300ha, and more to come. In our constant effort to improve efficiency, we decided to try and find out why some of our traps catch more rats than others.

Enter Otago University MSc student Peter Doyle, who is writing a thesis on rats in dryland and bush environments. Thanks to Curious Minds Otago Participatory Science Funding, administered by the Otago Museum, we engaged Peter to answer our burning question.

Peter surveyed rat-related environmental factors within 20m of each trap along many of our traplines, including vegetation species, height, spacing (sources of rat food), distance from water or tracks, soil and landform, and aspect (sources of rat comfort).

Branch volunteers assisted with surveys on some traplines. These environmental data were then compared with rat catch data from 100 traps over the past 15 years.

Peter found some quite solid correlations. More rats were caught when traps were located near karamū, putaputawētā, horopito, mingimingi, and round-leaved coprosma. These species produce rat tucker (berries) and also tend to be twiggy with thin branches and dense foliage, preferred habitat for climbing ship rats.

Peter also found that traps in mature beech forest with little

Rat tucker, coprosma berries.

Ian Turnbull

understorey catch fewer rats, more rats are caught near Makarora village, and traps that get flooded are hopeless.

Following these findings, we’ve decided to do things a little differently when deploying new traps. We will still follow best practice and space them about 100m apart on traplines, closer on trap grids, but move them around within that distance so they are under berry-bearing sub-canopy plants.

Recently, predator control groups across the Southern Lakes region, including our branch, combined to form the Southern Lakes Sanctuary. This project, funded through Jobs For Nature, will co-ordinate predator control efforts at a landscape scale. Being able to employ paid staff will mean a big boost for local biodiversity, including mohua.

New traplines established within the Southern Lakes Sanctuary will also be guided by Peter’s findings.

If the rat catch rate in our beech forests increases by even 10%, it was worth asking the question.

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ECONOMY

IMPACT INVESTING How can you invest your money in good causes that boost the wellbeing of nature and local communities as well as your bank balance?

Barry Coates

M

ost of us have some investments. We typically Much of the funding has gone to the start-ups and invest in companies to make a financial return.

SMEs that may otherwise struggle to find investment.

But what if our investment could make a positive social and environmental impact as well as a WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES? financial return?

There are some powerful examples of impact It would be especially rewarding if we could then investment being channelled to low-income countries. track the progress of social and environmental For example, private equity funds that target microimprovements as well as the financial return. insurance for African families emerging from poverty, Welcome to the world of impact investing. loans to an NGO providing roof-top solar in West Impact investment is where you buy shares in Africa, and a revenue-sharing model in Belize that enterprises that generate measurable boosts the income of small farmers through social or environmental impact returns as the export of sustainable cacao. well as a financial return.

Closer to home, a number of new impact Investing your The intention and measures are investment funds have been launched money in ethical outlined at the outset, so both parties know and more are planned. These include the funds can have exactly what success looks like. Then the Impact Enterprise Fund, Purpose Capital, a big impact. enterprise reports on both the impact and Climate Venture Capital Fund, and Te Puna The key is to the financial return.

Hapori, as well as the government’s New shift funding That combination of social/ Zealand Green Investment Finance. There from doing harm environmental impact and financial returns are also some exciting impact ventures at to doing good. makes impact investment an attractive the grassroots level, such as Te Pai Roa Tika, option for many investors. a Māori-led and owned model that respects As a result, there has been huge growth and draws on tīkanga to support impact in the number of companies and funds internationally investing in Northland. that identify themselves as impact investments.

There is huge potential to develop regenerative Some of them are greenwashing, but there has been agriculture, native forests, and marine initiatives significant investment into renewable energy, social in Aotearoa. Investing in restoring our natural housing, healthcare, and the circular economy. environment can also earn a financial return.

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Forest&&Bird Forest Bird Te Reo o te Taiao Taiao

There are also start-up impact enterprises, initially funded through crowdfunding or venture capital and subsequently through private equity.

Successful companies such as solid beauty bar makers Ethique or carbon recyclers Lanzatech have been supported through New Zealand’s early-stage financing.

A challenge has been a lack of capital to scale up impact funding. This is starting to come from mainstream KiwiSaver and retail investment funds that invest a small proportion of their portfolios in impact enterprises.

For example, Generate KiwiSaver invested $20 million in a Salvation Army social housing loan to build 118 homes for homeless people in Auckland.

The project organiser, Community Finance, has now launched a $100 million “Aotearoa Pledge” to enable community housing providers to ramp up their activity.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

MONEY FOR GOOD

SOCIAL HOUSING CARBON RECYCLING

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

NATIVE FOREST RENEWAL

HEALTH CARE OCEAN RESTORATION

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

RENEWABLE ENERGY

INDIGENOUS ENTREPRENEURS

HOW DO I INVEST FOR IMPACT? Despite these examples, New Zealand has been slow to embrace impact investing.

Unfortunately, most of the New Zealand impact investment funds are only available to wholesale and professional investors – those who either have a large amount to invest or investment experience.

Annual surveys show that members of the public are interested in impact investment opportunities, but the impact funds aren’t yet available.

A key is to shift funding from doing harm to doing good.

This process has started. Most KiwiSaver and investment funds have started to move along the “spectrum of impact” from ignoring social and environmental issues to progressively improve their impact.

Mindful Money provides a free tool that allows anyone to see the company investments in their KiwiSaver or investment fund. Most people are shocked to see what kind of firms they are supporting with their hard-earned cash! They can then use Mindful Money to help find an investment fund that fits their values.

HOW CAN YOU HELP? The potential for impact investing in New Zealand is huge. There is now more than $87 billion in KiwiSaver funds, and two-thirds of this is in funds that say they take account of social and environmental issues.

The challenge is to persuade at least some of these KiwiSaver and investment funds to go further and offer funds that have more of a positive social and environmental impact. The most common response is that they don’t think there are enough people who want impact funds.

So Mindful Money is joining together with our allies to demonstrate that there is significant public demand. If enough people say that they want impact investing, we can make it happen.

Please help by visiting our website and joining the growing list of Kiwis who want to see impact investment offered in New Zealand. We will present these names to all fund managers as proof that there is demand.

Join the campaign at www.mindfulmoney.nz/ investforimpact.

Barry Coates is a former Green MP and head of Oxfam NZ. He founded the charity Mindful Money in 2018 to encourage people to make their investments a force for good.

Tiritiri Matangi Island

RECHARGE YOUR SOUL Take a guided walk through the bush, serenaded by the sound of our magnificent native birds. See New Zealand's oldest working lighthouse, or simply immerse yourself in the peace and solitude that is Tiritiri Matangi Island.

tiritirimatangi.co.nz I Ferry bookings: fullers.co.nz

Mindful Money has put together a new free guide to ethical investing – see www.mindfulmoney.nz.

Summer 2021

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IN THE FIELD Hendrik Rosenboem

THE WOLF WITHIN

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Should we ban dogs on some beaches to protect native wildlife, especially vulnerable shorebirds?

Ann Graeme thinks we should.

hat is it about dogs?

Recently, we had a disagreement at our local duck pond. There was a dabchick swimming among the mallards. This is a rare sight in our city, and we were watching it with delight.

Then there was a great splash as a big black Labrador leapt into the pond, and, in a flurry of wings, all the wildlife fled.

We shouted at the dog. Its owner raced down and shouted at us! “He wouldn’t hurt the ducks!” she roared.

“He’s just playing! You don’t know my dog!”

That’s what they all say. We have a relationship with dogs that goes beyond our relationship with other animals.

Perhaps it is because we are both animals that live in packs, and, just as pack animals defend the members of their pack, dogs defend the people in their human family – and dog-owners defend their hounds against anyone who threatens them.

This is not a diatribe against dogs. We have a dog who is a beloved member of our family. But it is important to remember where dogs fit into the natural world.

All modern dogs are descended from wolves. It happened a long time ago, between 15,000 and 40,000 years or even longer.

Maybe we domesticated wolves or perhaps wolves domesticated themselves among hunter-gatherer people. However it happened, dogs have been our faithful helpers for thousands of years, and we have bred them for all manner of uses.

Today in our society working dogs are fewer, and most dogs live with us as companions. There is a bewildering variety of breeds. But they are all dogs, from the tiny Chihuahua to the enormous Saint Bernard.

We think we know our dogs, our friendly, devoted companions, but we deceive ourselves. Other animals are not fooled. They see the wolf inside the poodle.

We watched an illuminating example of this on Mount Maunganui’s main beach. In summer, it is thronged with thousands of visitors, swimming and surfing and playing in the sand.

But for the past five summers there have been some non-human residents. First, it was one pair of the variable oystercatchers, tōrea pango, then two pairs, Variable oystercatchers on an Auckland beach.

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Philip Moll

New Zealand dotterels with three chicks mingle with surfers on dog-free Mount Maunganui beach.

Ann Graeme

then last summer they were joined by several pairs of tūturiwhatu New Zealand dotterels.

The birds have nested in scrapes in the sand right in the middle of the beach. Their flimsy rope enclosure has had to grow larger and larger so people don’t tread on their nests by mistake.

The birds ignore the noisy crowds, the beach volleyball tournament beside them, the Ironman Competition racing by. In the blazing sun, they sit on their eggs and hatch their chicks.

Over the summers, many chicks have hatched, and some of the oystercatchers have grown to fledging, but not the dotterel chicks, so tiny people never noticed them when they ventured outside their roped enclosure.

They did not survive to fledging, but that is not the point of the story. What is so remarkable is that the parent birds nested at this site where human disturbance is most intense.

There is a lot more sand and surf beyond the main Mount beach. The beach sweeps on for kilometres, past the sprawling suburb of Papamoa, all the way to the Kaituna River.

Although there are fewer people, there is usually somebody walking the beach, but dotterels and oystercatchers never successfully nest along its length.

What makes the difference? It is the dogs. On the main Mount beach, dogs are banned. They have been banned for decades.

But dogs are permitted on all the beaches beyond.

With their owners, they are quite entitled to sniff along the high tide margin amongst the shells and driftwood – and no speckled eggs in a scrape of sand would survive their noses.

And even if the dogs just race along the firm sand, barking at the waves, their presence is enough to deter a nesting bird.

Birds behave differently when there are no dogs around. We went camping at Waikahoa Bay, to Mimiwhangata Farm Park, in Northland. This delightful DOC camping ground is nestled in the scoop of the bay between two headlands.

It is heavily booked in summer despite only being accessible on foot or by boat. There is no power, no loud

music is permitted, and neither are dogs. Just families, a sunny dunny, a tap, golden sand, and sparkling water.

And, to add to this paradise, local oystercatchers poked unafraid around our tents, their gangly youngsters tripping over the guy ropes.

The absence of dogs made the difference. The birds were not bothered by the campers or the children playing on the beach. Neither, the ranger told us, was the dotterel family, but their chicks had fledged before we arrived.

It’s not just birds that are bothered by dogs on beaches. Dog-less people and those with little children often prefer a beach without bounding pooing hounds.

While we do have beaches that restrict dogs to early morning and evening hours, that is no help to the birds.

We should take our dogs to the beach, for our own enjoyment and the pleasure it gives our pets. But not necessarily to every beach.

An off-leash dog harrassing a New Zealand sea lion at a Dunedin beach in 2020.

Evgeny Rodygin

We have many kilometres of beaches and if some stretches, particularly those that were more remote, were off-limits to dogs, people could still go there and share them with the birds.

It’s not as though we have vast numbers of our shore-nesting birds. The total population of variable oystercatchers is 5000 to 6000, and New Zealand dotterels number only 2500.

Caspian terns, who also nest on sandy beaches, number 1300 to 1400 pairs and falling. And as for the little tara iti, the New Zealand fairy tern, the 12 pairs left on Earth are only a dog bite away from extinction.

The story of Mount Maunganui beach shows how desperate shore-nesting birds are for dog-free nesting places. It would be a small sacrifice on our part to create more dog-free beaches, but it could be a lifeline for the birds.

What do you think? Should more beaches be made dog-free to protect their wildlife?

Write to editor@forestandbird.org.nz.

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FA R M I N G

DEER DAMAGE

Young fallow deer stags on a farm in Southland.

Jesse Bythell

Southland farmer Peter McDonald explains how deer impact farm productivity and destroy native biodiversity on his QEII protected land.

David Brooks

Y

ou don’t have to be in our national parks or public conservation land to experience the damage deer are doing – it’s a problem that private landowners are familiar with too.

The areas occupied by deer are expanding, and in many areas their numbers are increasing.

Monitoring by DOC nationwide indicates ungulates – deer, goats, tahr, and chamois – are expanding their range into new areas of public conservation land, and many of these areas are seeing population growth.

Jesse Bythell, one of QEII National Trust’s two Southland-based representatives, advises owners of about 200 covenants – natural areas that private landowners have agreed to permanently protect. Across the whole Southland region, QEII covenants cover over 10,000ha.

In the 12 years Jesse has been working with landowners in the region with QEII and other organisations, she has seen increasing problems caused by deer.

Peter McDonald, second left, with son William, wife Kim, and daughter Laura.

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“Definitely for Southland, I see every year it’s getting more acute,” Jesse says.

Public conservation land, privately and iwi-owned native forest, and forestry plantations are all major breeding grounds for deer in Southland, she says.

She sees a lot of deer damage in bush covenants in her region, although sometimes it’s not obvious to the casual observer. Deer change the composition of the understorey by destroying all the palatable seedlings and saplings, leaving just the hardy species they won’t eat.

More-established trees can be damaged by stags rubbing their antlers on the bark and eating bark, which Jesse captured on a trail cam a couple of years ago.

“Recruitment of podocarps such as rimu and miro can be severely set back by deer. A 30-, 50-, or 100-yearold rimu might be completely ringbarked by a deer and die,” she says. “When this happens, the long-term health of the forest is at risk.”

Where deer are abundant, they can cause severe pugging of the ground and they trample seedlings and ground cover.

Farmers have also suffered extensive crop damage and lost production because of deer.

Peter McDonald has a 669ha hill country sheep farm in the Caroline Valley, near Dipton in Southland.

His property includes 130ha of thick scrub and native bush, and a 29ha QEII bush covenant. He is a regional councillor and has been involved in catchment groups and a local Landcare group.

Deer damaged or destroyed 20ha of pine trees that were planted last year, eating the tops or ripping entire saplings from the ground.

With proper pest control, our native forests could be the most powerful carbon sinks on land.

“We’re probably looking at $25,000 to $30,000. That’s this year, but there’s probably been tens of thousands of dollars of damage in my other pine tree blocks,” he says.

Some red deer from the Hokonui Hills come on to his property, but his main problem is fallow deer that escaped in the past from a neighbouring farmer’s property.

He says his bush covenant has been damaged by deer, creating muddy patches on either side of the fence in the places they prefer to jump over, and they leave tracks through the bush.

“You can go in there, and the understorey is not like it should be,” he says.

Recent helicopter hunting has helped, and more than 650 deer have been taken out of the area in the last 18 months.

“When we took out the first lot of 150 deer, I was out one night and it felt different. It was like the land let out a sigh of relief. It seems quite strange, but it was quite different – the numbers of deer have just been too high.”

Peter and Jesse agree hunters have not been able to control deer numbers adequately.

Deer are found on public conservation land, private

An incredible 650 deer were removed from one Southland farm in the last 18 months.

and iwi property, and land controlled by other Crown agencies and the regional council. All these landowners will need to be involved in finding an answer.

Watch Forest & Bird’s Northland conservation manager Dean Baigent-Mercer explain the subtle differences between native moa and introduced browsers like deer and their impact on forest health at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x60VSHajHuQ.

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wildfiordland.co.nz Summer 2021

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HIGHLIGHTS

HIGHLIGHTS AND WINS 2021 It’s been another busy year for Forest & Bird. Thank you for being part of the team that is helping protect and restore nature across New Zealand!

JANUARY RECOVERY FOR PEOPLE AND PLANET Forest & Bird develops a detailed 68-page briefing to the government setting out why protecting nature is crucial and should no longer be “balanced” against economic considerations.

Putting nature first in all policy settings can create jobs, improve economic resilience, and help make New Zealand carbon neutral by 2040. The document set out the key government actions needed over the next three years.

ARK IN THE PARK Our volunteers donate more than 100 hours to watch over kōkako nests during the 2020/21 breeding season to stop rats eating the eggs and young chicks.

The team was delighted to report that several chicks successfully fledged. However, the time and effort this work involves underlines the urgent need for Predator Free 2050 to meet its goals.

FEBRUARY WETLANDS AS CARBON SINKS To mark World Wetlands Day, our freshwater team releases regional data showing how wetland restoration could be used to mitigate the effects of climate change. Peat wetlands in particular hold twice as much carbon as all of the world’s forests combined. In media stories and this magazine, Forest & Bird members explain how they’ve been restoring part of the Great Swamp, a historic peat

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wetland on the Kāpiti Coast, as a climate action.

NGARURORO APPEAL Our freshwater and legal teams lodge an appeal to the Environment Court after a Special Tribunal agreed a Water Conservation Order for the upper part of the Ngaruroro River, in Hawke’s Bay, but failed to recommend one for the lower part of the braided river despite saying it was “outstanding” for birdlife.

This case is partly funded by the $330,000 donated by supporters like you last November. Thank you for helping to advocate for stronger freshwater protections Ngaruroro and across Aotearoa!

MARCH FISHERS’ BROKEN PROMISES Commercial inshore fishers admit flouting voluntary measures intended to protect the tarakihi fishery from overfishing. The issue came to light after Forest & Bird used the Official Information Act to obtain a private industry briefing to the new Fisheries and Oceans Minister David Parker. It showed how two of six key peformance targets for the 2019/20 fishing year had been missed, including fishing boats failing to keep out of voluntary closed areas they promised not to fish because of their importance to juvenile tarakihi.

MŌTĪTĪ REEFS Conservation Minister Kiri Allan signs off three new Marine Protected Areas in the Bay of Plenty. The three reefs near

Mōtītī Island will be protected in perpetuity, helping return the marine life, including hāpuku and crayfish, back to this part of the Bay. Forest & Bird was proud to support Te Mōtītī Rohe Moana Trust in its successful legal battle, which culminated in a precedent-setting Court of Appeal decision upholding the relationship between conservation values and mātauranga Māori, leading to the creation of these protected areas.

Forest & Bird is looking forward to working with iwi and hapū around the country to ensure their mana moana and ecological expertise is similarly expressed.

APRIL DEFENDING THE HIGH COUNTRY Forest & Bird makes a submission to the Environment Committee strongly supporting the end of tenure review and calling on the new Crown Land Pastoral Act to be strengthened to better protect native species on Crown land. We also meet with Land and Information New Zealand Minister Damien Grant as part of our longrunning campaign to protect our fragile dryland habitats. In May, we publish information revealed in an Official Information Act request showing that, over the past 10 years, LINZ had failed to undertake any prosecutions in relation to public land held as pastoral leases despite a raft of complaints about unlawful activities, including burning, wetland clearance, and weed spraying.

David Hallett

Park from intrusive recreational aircraft landings. It’s an important win for nature all over New Zealand because it upholds the fact that conservation planning documents have a clear hierarchy, with the National Parks Act coming first.

OUR LAND 2021 Campaigning for nature-based solutions to the current climate and biodiversity crises has been at the heart of Forest & Bird’s advocacy work funded by donors this year.

The importance of this mahi is reinforced by the Ministry for the Environment’s landmark Our Land 2021 report, which reveals how 40% of New Zealand’s land is now farmed and how greenhouse gas emissions are increasing and linked to more intensive agriculture. Irrigation has doubled since 2002, and nitrate use is up 700% since 1991.

Native habitats continue to shrink, and urban sprawl is destroying farmland and ecoystems. Thanks to nationwide advocacy by e-NGOs, including Forest & Bird, new national policy statements on freshwater management and indigenous biodiversity are in place, but an effective climate policy statement is still missing in action.

MAY A WIN FOR PEACE AND SOLITUDE Together with Federated Mountain Clubs, with whom we share a proud history of protecting alpine areas, we win a historic High Court legal case protecting Paparoa National

OFF TO THE SUPREME COURT Our legal team is given leave to appeal an important Resource Management Act case to the Supreme Court. The case could decide whether nature protection trumps infrastructure policies. The case centres on RMA approvals for the proposed fourlane East–West Link in Auckland.

It’s the latest twist in a long-running legal battle.

JUNE PROTECTING NATURAL CARBON SINKS Forest & Bird releases new research highlighting the impact of feral browsing mammals on New Zealand’s natural carbon sinks, especially native forests, tussocklands, and shrublands.

An estimated 32m possums, wild deer, goats, pigs, and wallabies are decimating our carbon sinks, and removing all of them could reduce the equivalent of 15% of New Zealand’s 2018 net greenhouse gas emissions. We call for more pest control, coordination of programmes to remove browsing mammals, and funding for long-term research studies on the impact of predators on our natural carbon sinks.

PREDATOR FREE 2050 We publish a special report in Forest & Bird magazine looking at what has been

achieved in the first five years of the ambitious plan to rid New Zealand of rats, possums, and mustelids.

We are on the right track with six of the seven interim 2025 goals, but it’s vital that the community buys into the “shoot the moon” idea, conceived at Forest & Bird’s Ruapehu Lodge in 2012, and is properly consulted and involved in planning local project.

TARAKIHI HIGH COURT WIN Forest & Bird wins an important fishing court case confirming tarakihi catch limit decisions must put fish stock health before the commercial interests of the fishing industry.

It’s the first time the Society has challenged a Minister’s decision under the Fisheries Act. We told the court that the 2019 decision by the then Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash to allow tarakihi stocks to remain overfished for the next 25 years was not environmentally sustainable or legal – and the High Court agreed with us!

CAMERAS ON BOATS WIN The government announces it would roll out cameras across the bulk of the inshore fishing fleet – on more than 300 commercial fishing boats.

It’s been a long time coming and has taken a groundswell of public pressure, but we’ve finally achieved what will be a transformative practice for our fishing industry. The decision means that fishers using methods that can harm protected wildlife, including trawling and set-netting, will have cameras to monitor catches and safe-fishing practices.

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JULY JOBS FOR NATURE Forest & Bird scoops Jobs for Nature funding of $577,000 over three years for our Tautuku Ecological Restoration project in the Catlins. It will allow us to employ staff to add an additional 100ha of mustelid and rodent control plus targeted possum and feral cat control. This biodiversity hotspot, near Papatowai, is home to the critically endangered Tautuku forest gecko, long-tailed pekapeka, and many rare bird species.

SEABIRD SUCCESS Three years of predator control pay off at Sandymount, on the Otago Peninusla, which is home to a remnant tītī sooty shearwater breeding colony. Forest & Bird’s Bring Back the Seabirds team celebrated this year after an incredible 65+ tītī fledged. They’re the first chicks to do so since the start of the volunteer-led project, which sees the team setting and monitoring traps along the birds’ wild and windy clifftop breeding grounds.

AUGUST LANDMARK COAL CASE Our legal team serves papers on Southland District Council in a bid to stop a new coal mine in Southland, near Nightcaps, going ahead. This judicial review of the council’s decision was taken as a climate action on behalf of future generations who will be most affected by global warming.

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Earlier in the year, Forest & Bird launched a No New Mines petition, calling on the government to stop coal mining in Aotearoa. Thank you to the 6000 of you who have signed so far.

RMA REFORM Using the Resource Management Act 1991, Forest & Bird has saved many precious environments and created powerful precedents for environmental protection. But doing so has been far harder and more expensive than it should have been. In August, Forest & Bird’s legal team makes a detailed submission on the proposed Natural and Built Environments Act that could achieve what the RMA began 30 years ago – bring back wildlife while allowing for human and ecological wellbeing.

SEPTEMBER SEABED MINING WIN The Supreme Court unanimously rejects an appeal by mining company Trans-Tasman Resources Limited (TTR) to mine ironsand in the South Taranaki Bight. Thanks to your donations, Forest & Bird has stood shoulderto-shoulder with local iwi and hapū, community organisations, and other environmental e-NGOs to stop this seabed mining. The proposed project would destroy blue whale and Māui dolphin habitat.

HISTORY PROJECT The 2021 Forest & Bird history scholarship, funded by the Stout Trust, is awarded to Katrin O’Donnell, a Science

in Society Masters Student from Victoria University. She made a documentary inspired by Forest & Bird’s history using clips from the recently discovered conservation films commissioned by the Society to highlight its work in the 1920s and 1960s.

OCTOBER BAT TAKEOVER For the first time, New Zealand’s native bats fly into Te Manu Rongonui o te Tau Bird of the Year and ruffle some feathers!

The controversial move was aimed at raising awareness of the perilous state of critically endangered pekapeka – Aotearoa’s only endemic land mammal. This year’s Bird of the Year was our most popular yet with more than 58,000 votes cast, the most since the competition began in 2005.

PUBLICITY Forest & Bird’s communications team has been busy all year breaking conservation stories and keeping nature at the forefront of the public’s mind during a critical year for climate and nature. Among many media appearances during the year, Forest & Bird’s staff featured in Milk and Money, a documentary and article series about the true cost of dairy in Aotearoa, and in Stuff’s This Is How It Ends series on biodiversity loss.

The team also works hard to keep all our members, volunteers, and supporters in touch with key issues through this quarterly magazine (96,000 copies distributed per

year), our children’s Wild Things magazine (40,000 copies per annum). We also publish monthly e-newsletters for 140,000+ supporters and branch committees.

We love staying in touch with our 122,000 Facebook followers, while 194,000 unique visitors came to our websites in October.

NOVEMBER KCC Forest & Bird’s Hakuturi Toa Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC) has been connecting children to New Zealand nature for more than 30 years. Thanks to our 50 dedicated volunteer coordinators, conservation trips, and popular Wild Things magazine, our 5000 young members and their whānau are learning, creating, challenging, and advocating for nature in their own backyards. KCC’s fourth Be With a Tree campaign, supported by Heritage NZ and the New Zealand Arboricultural Association, was the most successful yet. Thanks to everyone who supported KCC during 2021 through gifts of time and money. You are helping us engage the next generation in protecting our wildlife and wild places, ka pai rā tēnei mahi!

Membership is just $24 a year – time to give a gift of nature to your whānau?

FOREST & BIRD YOUTH New hubs are established in Hawke’s Bay, Kāpiti, and Dunedin, and a regional group is set up in Southland. Youth’s national co-director Kaya Freeman

joined Forest & Bird’s Board as an independent member, and Forest & Bird’s Council now includes two Youth representatives, who will be allowed to vote in future AGMs. The Youth-led advocacy team has been growing this year and focusing on national climate and biodiversity campaigns, while 400 volunteers of all ages turned up in June to help plant 13,000 trees and shrubs in Hoskings Reserve, Auckland, the largest Youth-led restoration project in the country.

DECEMBER VOLUNTEERS IN ACTION Earlier this year, we announced survey results that showed more than 3000 Forest & Bird volunteers gifted nearly 65,000 hours of their time during 2020, despite the Covid-19 crisis and disruption to on-the-ground conservation projects. Together, they grew and planted more than 42,000 trees and shrubs, checked 17,000 traps and bait stations, and helped restore 70,000ha. They also cared for wildlife from Southland to Northland, including rescuing starving penguins in Southland, counting hihi nests at Bushy Park Tarapuruhi, and trapped for rats, stoats, and possums along the Hibiscus Coast, near Auckland.

responsible for the wins highlighted here. We couldn’t have done it without you! At the time of writing, you had donated $8 million during 2021 to protect nature in Aotearoa, which is incredible. We treasure each and every one of our supporters, whether you donate on a regular basis, respond to appeals for help, encourage your employers to support, include a gift in your will, or contribute by working as volunteers on 300+ national and branch projects.

Forest & Bird is Aotearoa’s largest and oldest independent conservation charity. For nearly 100 years, people like you have been battling to bring back nature across the country. Thank you for being as passionate about protecting and restoring the environment as we are.

David Hallett

FUNDRAISING Thanks to all of you, our members, supporters, and corporate sponsors, who are

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ARTS

TOHORā TALES

Caught, by Shannon Te Rangihaeata Clamp.

Shannon Te Rangihaeata Clamp explains how he gives nature a voice through his artworks.

Jazmine Ropner

H

ave you ever wondered what life is like in the eyes of an animal? Viewing the underwater world from the perspective of a dusky dolphin or from a noisy kākā high up in the treetops?

Wildlife photography gives the audience an opportunity to see our environment from the viewpoint of animals and the mind of the photographer.

Māori artist and photographer Shannon Te Rangihaeata Clamp uses his powerful imagery to highlight the fragility and interconnectedness of our natural world.

Shannon grew up in the Basque region of south-western France surrounded by nature, in view of the Pyrenees mountains. His mother is French and his father Māori.

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Every year, while living in Europe, he would visit New Zealand to spend time on Takapūwāhia marae, in Porirua. Four years ago, Shannon decided to move to Aotearoa, and he is currently living in Wellington.

Members of Shannon’s iwi, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, are direct descendants of the first waka that arrived at Kawhia in Aotearoa.

He was taught Māori values growing up, including the concept of taiao, the belief that mankind must live in harmony with nature and the inter-generational importance of environmental wellbeing.

“My whānau taught me different ways humans can respect and live in harmony alongside nature, as well as introducing me to

traditional Māori myths,” he says.

Shannon’s whakapapa, his Māori ancestral connection to nature, has provided inspiration for his images and artworks.

His wildlife photographs are full of movement that take us into his subject’s world.

Although the animal is often central to the image, he typically includes a gorgeous border of their natural habitat, reinforcing the importance of the integration of all elements of nature.

“I’m passionate about animals, and I hope to give them a voice via my art. I want to take a stand for nature, a fragile nature that we should respect and not dismiss,” he says.

In a series of confronting works from his mixed media series Tales of the Ocean, Shannon recreates ancient Māori legends and tells them in a modern way using his images to show how ocean pollution affects humans and animals.

His images force the viewer to see a human suffering in place of an animal, as he takes on the role of his wildlife subjects.

The series is designed to raise Realisation. Self portrait with ocean rubbish.

By Shannon Te Rangihaeata Clamp.

awareness about the kinds of human activities that have negative impacts on our environment, including plastic pollution and poor fishing practices. Such activities disrupt the balance of all living things, violating te taiao.

“Nature is such an important thing for Māori. We relate to the mountains, to the ocean, to the animals. We worship them as different gods,” Shannon explains.

Ancient Māori traditions are highly guided by taiao. They reflect the belief that it is our responsibility to make sure that all components in nature function well.

Shannon believes that Māori respect for the ocean, the forest, and the animals that dwell within them can inspire a more holistic approach to conservation on Aotearoa.

Laurie and Dolphins (above) and Parāoa (below), by Shannon Te Rangihaeata Clamp.

SHANNON’S PEPEHA Ko Tainui tōku waka Ko Whitireia tōku maunga Ko Raukawakawa tōku moana Ko Porirua tōku awa Ko Takapūwāhia tōku marae Ko Toa Rangatira tōku whare tūpuna Ko Ngāti Toa Rangatira tōku iwi Ko Ngāti Koata tōku hapū Ko Michael Te Rangihiroa rāua, ko Sylvie ōku mātua Ko Shannon Te Rangihaeata Clamp-Parata tōku ingoa

The Mana of the Parāoa swimming through a Rough Moana, by Shannon Te Rangihaeata Clamp.

His most important muse is tohorā, a taonga species for Māori.

Some iwi believe the first man arrived in Aotearoa on the back of a sperm whale.

Shannon has had firsthand experience seeing tohorā. “The grace of a humpback whale swimming and breaching is one of the most breath-taking, incredible things I have had the chance to witness,” he says.

“I want people to appreciate wildlife as much as I do. We have wiped out so much of our animal population. We must defend, conserve, and protect our planet and animals on land and in the ocean.”

Shannon hopes that his work will inspire people to have more respect for nature and take action to conserve it.

You can see Shannon’s work in the Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award exhibition, which is touring the country. It will be on display at the Waikato Museum until May 2022. See https:// shannonclamp.wixsite.com/ cstart.

“Introducing yourself using a pepeha is an important custom in Māori culture,” explains Shannon.

“Pepeha is a location-based identity for Māori related to their whakapapa. It articulates how we view ourselves as being interconnected with all aspects of the natural world.”

RECONNECTING TO NATURE Restoration ecologist Dion Pou explained how a pepeha connects an individual to the natural world during his presentation to Forest & Bird’s annual conference.

“It’s a whole-of-landscape concept that is overlaid with the social context of a person’s hapū (subtribe) and iwi (tribe),” he said.

“A pepeha represents connections and is site-focused.

This is important. It must be sitefocused to connect everything up.

“We are a part of nature, but we have lost the connection to the natural world, to taiao. We’ve disconnected to each other as well as to nature. The signs are all around us – climate change and biodiversity loss.

“We need to fix the disconnection, to regain taiao.

If we fix that up, everything else follows,” Dion added.

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BIODIVERSITY

BEACHES NOT HIGHWAYS

Shorebirds like these tūturiwhatu are incredibly vulnerable to 4WDs driving through their nests.

Dean Wright

Following a spate of issues involving vehicles disturbing wildlife below the shoreline, Forest & Bird is calling on the government and councils to make beaches safer for everyone.

Caroline Wood

E

arlier this year, our Eastern Bay of Plenty Branch wrote to acting Conservation Minister Ayesha Verrall about vehicles causing damage to dune and beach ecosystems, including threatened shorebirds.

The Minister was asked to initiate a review of the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement to prohibit vehicles on beaches except for management, emergencies, boat-launching, surf lifesaving, or where properties are landlocked and the beach is the only access.

Rare shorebirds that nest and feed in the beach and dune environment include tūturiwhatu New Zealand dotterel, torea oystercatchers, tarāpunga redbilled gull, taranui Caspian tern, tara white-fronted tern, and poaka pied stilt.

“Forest and Bird’s Linda Conning particular concern is the lack of control of vehicles on beaches, which is not only a safety risk for the public but also for native wildlife,” says 42

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branch chair Linda Conning.

“The birds are largely loved and respected by most people, but there is a section of the population with a sense of entitlement to do whatever they want in their vehicles, wherever they want to. They are disturbing and destroying nests, eggs, chicks, and adults.

“Sadly, the 4WD vehicles enabling this behaviour are now ubiquitous in the Eastern Bay of Plenty and other parts of the country.”

The public perception tends to be that all beaches are roads. While some of them are – for example, Ninety Mile Beach, in Northland – the vast majority are not. But current legislation is complicated and hard to navigate, even for experts.

Under the Land Transport Act, speed limits and vehicle licensing rules are enforceable on beaches, but this does not mean that cars are automatically allowed to drive on a beach.

In fact, the legality of driving on a beach is subject to any local, regional, or national regulation applying to a particular location.

Anyone can ask their local

council to introduce a bylaw to prohibit vehicles on local beaches.

Over the past decade, Forest & Bird’s Eastern Bay of Plenty Branch has persuaded two councils to do just that in a few special places.

Current legislation regarding vehicles on beaches is hard to navigate, even for experts. Foxton Beach.

Dave Arthur

In other parts of the country, councils have been unwilling to pass beach bans because of local opposition (see right).

Some local councils, including the Bay of Plenty and Greater Wellington, have added rules to their environmental plans to prevent vehicles from driving in some coastal areas.

MARLBOROUGH’S BEACH BYLAW

But even when sensible bylaws or local rules to protect wildlife have been secured, our branches and DOC staff often have difficulty in getting their councils to enforce them, says Linda.

Forest & Bird would like to see the government change the Land Transport Act to prohibit vehicles on beaches to protect coastal values (unless for emergencies, surf lifesaving, launching boats, accessing landlocked properties, fisheries, and conservation enforcement). Councils would need to pass local bylaws to allow vehicles for these specific purposes.

Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says her department is working with the Ministry for the Environment to ensure that national coastal policy, including dealing with vehicles on beaches, is included in the new National and Built Environment Act and National Planning Framework.

It remains to be seen what will happen. In the meantime, local democratic processes remain the best way to ban vehicles from harming wildlife and coastal ecosystems.

Linda Conning, who is an environmental planner, has written a brief guide for members who want to use the current legislation to better protect their local beaches. You can download it at https://bit.ly/3FXrGij.

MEANWHILE DOWN IN SOUTHLAND...

This part of the beach at Curio Bay, in the Catlins, is supposed to be vehiclefree to protect hoiho and other species.

Caroline Wood

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proposed bylaw banning all vehicles, including quad bikes, from a 45km stretch of quake-hit Marlborough coastline was released by Marlborough District Council in July.

It followed lobbying by concerned locals from the East Coast Protection Group and Debs Martin, Forest & Bird’s top of the South Island’s regional conservation manager.

The Kaikōura earthquake uplifted land along the east coast in November 2016, raising it by up to 2.5m between the Awatere and Waimā/Ure rivers. The area is known for its cultural significance to multiple iwi.

In places where vehicle access was previously restricted by tides, it’s now possible to drive at any time.

Debs approached the council in March 2018 after becoming concerned the increase in vehicle access was damaging coastal ecosystems and putting wildlife at risk.

The council agreed to investigate and found the increase in beach driving, coupled with damage caused by the earthquake, was putting pressure onto the coastal habitat.

Debs said the council could not allow this to continue.

All councils are required to protect areas of environmental significance under the Resource Management Act, the Coastal Policy Statement, and its own environment plan.

“Marlborough District Council has an obligation to protect the natural character and outstanding values of the East Coast, and not to allow people Debs Martin to continue to kill or disturb wildlife, whether intentional or unintentional,” she said.

“They also need to protect biodiversity, the dunelands, and limestone features under national laws.”

The council agreed to explore a new bylaw in December 2019 and has spent the past 18 months talking with iwi, community groups, and others with an interest in the coast.

The ban has two exceptions allowing boat launching at two places, one across Marfells Beach and the other at Ward Beach.

Submissions closed in September 2021, and Forest & Bird is waiting for a final decision.

In Marlborough, vehicles have created permanent tracks along coastline ecosystems trying to recover from the Kaikōura earthquake uplift. Debs Martin

Forest & Bird member Sian Mair has been lobbying Clutha District Council with a petition and letter-writing campaign to stop vehicles driving along two Catlins beaches. Her campaign is supported by Forest & Bird’s Southland and Otago branches and local regional conservation manager Rick Zwaan. They want to see vehicles restricted on Cannibal Bay and Surat Bay, both wildlife hotspots are frequented by Sian Mair New Zealand sea lions and other rare species.

“The council and community have identified that cars and dogs on beaches can endanger protected wildlife and be a nuisance and danger to other beach users,” says Sian.

The council has signalled this issue is a priority and that public consultation will take place in May 2022.

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U R B A N N AT U R E

Butterfly FRIENDLY GARDENS

Create a welcome space in your backyard for native butterflies to rest, eat, and rear their young.

O

ur friends at the Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust are calling on Kiwis to make their gardens butterfly friendly.

They are asking our members to plant at least one butterfly-friendly plant in their garden this summer to help protect our declining native species.

Butterfly-friendly plants include coneflowers, cosmos, hebes, zinnias, and salvias, and they are readily available in local garden centres. Adding these in your garden will mean passing butterflies have somewhere to find nectar.

“Everyone loves butterflies, and we are lucky enough to have some beautiful endemic species,” says Jacqui Knight, founding trustee of the Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust.

“But Kiwis need to understand the needs of butterflies, or we risk losing them.”

Anecdotal evidence indicates that, over recent years, numbers of New Zealand butterflies have decreased, mainly from a loss of habitat but also from a lack of awareness.

Three-quarters of the people who contributed to one of the trust’s surveys last year expressed concern, with half of the respondents saying they had seen virtually no monarch eggs, caterpillars, or chrysalises at all.

A garden can be a hospitable place for many butterfly species.

“We’re challenging green-thumbed and nongardening Kiwis alike to buy a butterfly-friendly plant from their local garden centre and plant it in their garden to prepare for the butterfly season,” says Jacqui.

“Very soon, they’ll likely have a few bright and beautiful butterfly visitors!

“The trust’s vision is to create a flourishing environment that supports our butterfly and moth species, but we can’t do it alone.”

The Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust has created this colourful poster featuring butterflyfriendly nectar plants for your garden.

You can download it from https://bit.ly/3Ex9PwX. For more information, see www.nzbutterflies.org.nz.

Monarch butterfly.

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Sally Phillips

CONSUMER

REEF-SAFE SUNSCREENS Summer is here, and it’s time to enjoy New Zealand’s gorgeous beaches. Before you do, make sure your sunscreen isn’t causing the ocean harm.

Kathryn Curzon

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any chemical sunscreens contain ingredients that are thought to cause and worsen coral bleaching. Bleached corals are more likely to die, which can result in the loss of entire coral reef ecosystems.

Oxybenzone is the most common ingredient to avoid, but there are many others, including octinoxate, octocrylene, parabens, and triclosan. The easiest way to avoid these ingredients is to switch to natural reef-safe sunscreens.

These don’t contain ingredients that are known to harm corals and other marine life. They are a smart choice to help protect the oceans and our bodies from harm.

What about sunscreens that contain “nano” zinc oxide?

These tiny particles make zinc or titanium-oxide-based sunscreens appear clear or less white on the skin.

Some online sources say you should avoid zinc oxide nanoparticles completely because they can harm coral reefs.

Several companies use nano zinc but in a way that ensures the zinc particles are not so small as to cause harm to humans or the ocean.

If in doubt, ask the company that makes your preferred sunscreen.

They can confirm what tests they do to ensure all of their ingredients are genuinely reef safe.

Featured right are my picks of four reef-friendly sunscreens made in New Zealand or Australia.

SEASICK SUNSCREEN

Seasick Sunscreen was created by a passionate Kiwi conservationist on a mission to create an all-natural sunscreen with plastic-free packaging. This sunscreen is about as natural as sunscreen gets, being made from just four ingredients. It offers broad-spectrum SPF30 protection using non-nano zinc and complies with the AS/ NZS Sunscreen Standard 2604:2012.

ACTIVE INGREDIENT: Zinc oxide (non-nano).

WHERE TO BUY: www.seasicksunscreen.co.nz

SOL

The Kiwi couple behind Sol has created a mineral suncare range that is loved by surfers and adventurers worldwide. Their products are reef-safe, plastic-free, and made in a low-waste environment. They are also tinted to avoid the white-skin effect that some zinc-based sunscreens cause.

ACTIVE INGREDIENT: Zinc oxide (nano), Polyglyceryl-3

Polyricinoleate (UV filter).

WHERE TO BUY: www.sol.co.nz

MOOGOO

MooGoo’s SPF40 sunscreen works very well in the New Zealand sun, and it rubs in clear despite being zinc based. It is free of chemical UV filters, and the gentle ingredients are ideal for sensitive skin. MooGoo also works closely with Reef Check Australia.

ACTIVE INGREDIENT: Nano zinc.

WHERE TO BUY: www.moogoo.com.au and in New Zealand

pharmacies.

OASIS BEAUTY

Oasis Beauty offers a range of sunscreens for adults, children, and sports. Some products are listed as reef-safe, vegan, and free from chemical UV filters. Check out their Family Zinc Sunscreen Stick SPF30, vegan Kids Healthy Sunscreen SPF40, and vegan Healthy Sunscreen SPF50.

ACTIVE INGREDIENT: Zinc oxide, hydroxyapatite (in the family

sunscreen stick only).

WHERE TO BUY: www.oasisbeauty.com and in New Zealand

stores.

Other global brands to consider include: 3RD ROCK SUNBLOCK, www.3rdrockessentials.com STREAM 2 SEA, www.stream2sea.com RAW ELEMENTS USA, www.rawelementsusa.com SURFMUD, www.surfmud.com

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2 6 H A B I TAT S N Z

TAKE ME THERE

Forest & Bird recently teamed up with 17 New Zealand writers to raise awareness about the country’s threatened native habitats. Each writer/artist pair had to create a 100-word centena, artwork, essay, and personal pledge inspired by their chosen landscape. The works, part of a global writing project, were published online during the COP26 climate summit. Here, the first four 26 Habitats NZ writers reflect on conservation, climate, fragility, and survival.

SHOAL BAY ESTUARY, AUCKLAND WRITER Jane

Langley

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ARTISTIC PARTNER Becky

ive me a dense damp beech forest deep in the centre of the South Island. Send me to a violently windswept alp where life and death meet at the apex.

Let me lie in the golden dunes watching bleached tussock strands tumble along the beach. But estuaries? Somehow I felt I’d drawn the short straw in this assignment.

Estuaries are not what I’d call beautiful landscapes. You wouldn’t paint that shallow wash of murky tidal water. You can’t admire the boats when they’re rolled over on their sides, looking so awkwardly undignified. You wouldn’t go for a romantic stroll across the slimy grey mudflats, exposed at low tide like the dregs of a dirty sink.

The bare honest truth is that, when I’m driving across the motorway extension past Shoal Bay, my eyes slide quickly towards the mangroves. If the tide is high enough to cover their roots, I feel a flash of relief – as if I’ve been spared from having to glimpse a naked neighbour through their notfrosted-enough window.

But embarking on this project has revealed a more interesting truth. Those mangrove roots jabbing out of the mud like prehistoric weeds? They’re ugly, yes, but they’re a lesson in survival, too. Faced with silt and sediment runoff, many species simply suffocate. But the mangrove has turned our careless disregard for proper stormwater management

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Ollivier

into an opportunity to thrive.

The more runoff we create, the more rapidly the mangroves spread. And those funny little roots poking out of the greasy mud? They’re actually highly sophisticated snorkels. Roots that can breathe, properly known as pnuematophores. Those root networks extend far beyond the tree’s above-ground canopy – a genius survival mechanism that lets them breathe easily, despite all that sediment and silt.

They tell a story of adaptability in inhospitable conditions. They remind us humans not to give up.

If we asked them, I imagine they’d say, “F*** Mars, let’s find a way to survive here on Earth, no matter what.”

PERSONAL PLEDGE

We don’t have to be buried under the weight of indecision. We can decide to survive, like the mangroves. Decision one: donate to Forest & Bird.

PNEUMATOPHORES Just keep reaching.

The mangrove roots probe up through the mud.

Little stubs of hope.

Not elegant, but essential, silently absorbing more carbon than a loudly lauded forest giant ten times her size.

Just the tips of her skinny brown roots poke above the rising tide like the tips of wizened fingers, tiny drowners underwater grasping for rescue.

But the truth is she breathes easily and we’re the ones quietly drowning.

We’ll be buried under the weight of motorway extensions and indecisions, while the mangrove extends fresh fingers, replicating her simple survival plan in each pneumatophorous root: just keep reaching.

KĀPITI ISLAND Hayden Maskell ARTISTIC PARTNER Rachel Walker WRITER

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hy did a grumpy military man like Captain Ernest Valentine “Val” Sanderson spend half his life fighting to protect forests and birds?

By all accounts, Captain Sanderson was fearsome. He served in the South African War and First World War before turning his keen eye and flinty chin to conservation.

Horrified at Kāpiti’s decimation by unfenced ungulates on his 1921 visit, he took it upon himself to fight a war on three fronts.

Armed with guns and steel wire, he set about eradicating goats, possums, and deer from the island.

Armed with a fearsome reputation and complete disinterest in making friends, he took on the government.

And, armed with battle-hardened organisational skills, he set up what became the New Zealand Forest and Bird Society.

I also think he may have been armed with rosy glasses. In writing this piece, I thought about the idea that Sanderson’s sense of duty cloaked an eye attuned to beauty.

He felt the island’s nature reserve had been abused, mistreated, and neglected. He was pained by the lack of birdsong. He wanted Kāpiti to be beautiful. To be herself.

There is something else I couldn’t quite put into words, though: unease, maybe. Protecting nature often requires balancing preservation with exhibitionism.

Conservation efforts are usually sparked by a desire to restore some

beauty that has been eroded.

People want to see what they’re saving.

We like befores and afters. We want to protect nature, but we also really want to look at it at its most beautiful.

That’s not to devalue conservation work. Being seduced by nature’s beauty is no bad thing.

Despite our most industrious efforts, we’re a product of nature.

Sometimes we need a reminder, and sometimes that reminder is a walk and gawk in the bush.

I think of our narrator, a proxy for Sanderson and for us all, as nervous and clumsy. He is on a date with an enigmatic and exotic creature. Gentlemanly to a fault, he is patient, protective and respectful. But he’s also a bundle of nerves. Even his hope – that she might be ready – is tentative.

But his adoration is not motivated by expectation. He’s motivated by duty, and by hope. He believes that a selfless dedication to Kāpiti, nurturing nature, giving her privacy and sanctuary, might be his best hope for their relationship.

PERSONAL PLEDGE

I will unplug for one day a week and become a quiet guest in nature’s household. Shoes off, watch where I step, and listen in earnest.

ISLANDS I might be hard-headed but that is what it takes.

It takes butting heads to stop rutting goats, it takes guns and steel and a keen eye.

What it takes is to stare down the tides, to be like seaward cliffs and jut my flint chin into the onslaught.

It takes standing guard while she drapes herself in capes of dull emeralds and downy browns singing nothing in particular.

Sometimes I sneak a peek (I am only human) but I am patient.

Soon I may ask her if she is ready for me and hope she answers: ‘I might be’.

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2 6 H A B I TAT S N Z

LINDIS PASS, SOUTH ISLAND WRITER Mark

Easterbrook

I

ARTISTIC PARTNER

Mark Carter

t’s been a long time since I’ve visited any of the South Island’s dryland habitats. And for this project, I was unable to go back. But then I remembered an image of the Mackenzie Country.

Taken by my friend Mark Carter, an accomplished photographer, it suggested to me that writers and photographers can transport people to places unvisited. I wanted to know if Mark thought the same.

feeling, questioning if it’s real.

I try to capture the raw feeling, the remoteness, the rugged unforgiving nature, or sublime beauty. I’m usually by myself.

There’s an inner peace you feel but also the sense of remoteness, being exposed to nature, vulnerable.

It can be unnerving … I want to convey how it feels to be alone in these places.

ME: This is Lindis Pass, correct?

about how photographers are able to transport people. Do you ever think about it in that way?

What took you there to take the photo?

MC: Lindis Pass was long on my radar. I’m attracted to dramatic landscapes with a surreal feeling to them, like impressionist art. It’s hard to imagine something like this is so perfect in form, like a sculptor has carved it.

ME: What are you trying to capture

when you shoot a landscape like this?

MC: I look for drama and raw beauty ... if the terrain is rugged and unforgiving, otherworldly or vast, it’s got my attention. I like the idea of capturing something that gives you a bit of a wow

ME: I look at this shot and think

MC: Yes, absolutely. This is something that I almost always think about. How can I make you feel like you’re there? How do I translate what I’m seeing and feeling into an image and convey this? That’s probably why I search for the drama ... that edgy uneasiness and raw beauty, all wrapped up in human emotions.

ME: Is photography a valid way to

safely share ecologically fragile places with people?

MC: Absolutely, though with modern social media, it often works in the opposite way, drawing more

OPEN IN CASE OF LOSS Take us there Without taking us there.

Give us the fall of the light and The moment of sky and The depth of shadow (Is it cold in the lee? Or a break from the sun?) and The rawness of the earth blown dry.

Walk us through the capture — How glass and light and circuitry hold Time and place and the majesty of Land and season.

Unwind the way the words fall in Lines that trace the shape of the Hills and valleys and memories of There and when.

When we lose our way to the drylands Take us there.

people into often untouched places for that perfect selfie. For me, it’s all about the landscape and not about me in it ... going in and leaving as little imprint on the area as I can.

Photography plays a huge role in communicating how fragile our ecological environment is. It can highlight this fragility and show the beauty, why it needs to be cared for. Or conversely, it can expose the damage overuse of the land can cause.

ME: Thanks Mark. Here’s to

transporting people, through images and words!

PERSONAL PLEDGE

Creatively, with words and photography, we strive to share both the beauty and fragility of New Zealand’s natural habitats so they can be experienced without impact.

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MĀUI DOLPHIN HABITAT, KAREKARE, WEST AUCKLAND WRITER Sir

Bob Harvey

ARTISTIC PARTNER

Ted Scott

Ki ngā tini mate kua atu ki tua o te arai, ka mihia.

Ka nui te aroha ki a koutou kua wehe atu nei i a matou No reira e ngā mate, haere, haere, haere atu ra.

The many dead who have passed beyond this world are remembered and greeted.

Great is our love for you who have been taken from us. Therefore I bid you farewell…

to the dead farewell, farewell.

I

have been on this wild stormy west coast for nearly 70 years, and I have been a life guard at Karekare for 65 of those years. This is my final season as an active life guard, but I will continue to support the patrol and the new generations that have come forward.

It is probably one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, but it is also dangerous and can be deadly. The tidal rips are always sweeping the beach, and each year we are faced with many heroic and often very dangerous rescues of swimmers.

The surf club of which I am a life member has been built on Māori gift land, and I acknowledge the iwi with deep respect.

We have recently carved a large three metre pou whenua (marker of ownership) to acknowledge their past and their pa site which stands behind the club on the high cliffs which dominate the northern ridge line.

As a swimmer and surfer I have often swum with dolphins, cutting

in and diving under and around us.

It’s an exhilarating experience, one of life’s great gifts, to swim with dolphins beyond the breakers.

My experiences with these encounters have been extraordinary and life changing.

Twice I have seen a Māui dolphin swimming alone, seemingly aware of what is happening on the beach and observing the life-saving work we do.

I know that these are tragically being ensnared in nets and their numbers are diminishing every year.

I felt there was a message in my piece, as someone who has rescued many people, to give Māui dolphins a voice – to beg to be rescued also and to acknowledge their existence.

I saw my work addressing a lone dolphin, the last of the species at my favourite beach.

PERSONAL PLEDGE

I will continue my life-long support of those who patrol and those who care for one of the most beautiful and dangerous beaches in the world.

MY MĀUI I watch them with a weeping eye Trusting Rescue me rescue me Forgiving They come with nets...

Always They say with love...

Killing I watch them walking standing Sometimes swimming with young Limbs stretching breathing like us A boy on a Dolphin Saved A story retold remade a lie the vast Ocean of grief Some live some die Saved by line Some calling slowly sink to me Eye to eye embrace A thousand years of mourning and loss The blue world turns to blood The Sun sinks The Green Flash dances one last time gone gone gone I watch them

These four New Zealand works form part of the global 26 Habitats project that is highlighting the link between climate change, habitat loss, and biodiversity. Thank you to everyone who donated their time and talents to highlight New Zealand’s unique landscapes, and to our UK partners, at 26 and the Wildlife Trusts, for their support and for publishing all the New Zealand works online at https://26project.org.uk/26habitats/. You can read the other writers’ works in upcoming issues.

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Gifts of nature

Buy local this Christmas and feel good knowing you are supporting small eco-conscious businesses in Aotearoa. All these products and many more are available at Forest & Bird’s online shop at https://shop.forestandbird.org.nz

➊ Grey Ghost, South Island

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kōkako, limited edition print

➌ Jewel Beetle

This stunning Grey Ghost artwork was created by photographer Tara Swan and our very own magazine art director Rob Di Leva and is offered as a special fundraiser for Forest & Bird. We have 300 limited edition prints available at $60 each. You may recognise this image from the cover of the last Forest & Bird magazine, illustrating a story about conservationists who are convinced the orange-wattled South Island kōkako isn’t extinct but survives in a remote forest far from human habitation.

Every dollar of profit from this fundraiser goes towards our conservation work. You can also buy this print from www.swanphotography.co.nz.

These earrings are handmade in Jewel Beetle’s workshop in Nelson, New Zealand. Their collection of earrings, which includes hoiho, pīwakawaka, or kiwi, are delicate and beautifully crafted with precision and care.

Add some joy to your day with some new earrings (from $79) or treat a loved one to a solid silver charm bracelet ($49) and kiwi charm ($55).

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Forest & Bird Te Reo o te Taiao

➋ Nature’s Grace Support some of New Zealand’s lesser-known critters like the forest gecko by buying this 500-piece puzzle, suitable for adults or children alike (forest ringlet design also available ($42 each). Nature’s Grace also has a set of gift cards and journals featuring native geckos and butterflies ($26 and $24 respectively).

All profits from Forest & Bird’s shop sales go towards our conservation work.

➍ Love Nature hoodies Tell the world you Love Nature with this design that is only available to Forest & Bird supporters. It is available in a range of great colours for men, women, and children. Even better, at least $20 from every sale funds conservation work to defend and restore the environment you love, right here in New Zealand ($65).

➏ Hansby Design

➐ Gifts for children

Featuring original artwork by Hansby Design, these handy A6-size notebooks (top) have 100 plain white pages ($19.50). Why not support your favourite native birds while jotting down your ideas, notes, and lists? Check out Hansby Design’s other popular gifts, including tea towels, keyrings, magnets, art prints, and coasters.

They make great, affordable gifts for friends and family.

There are heaps of gift ideas for children of all ages in the Forest & Bird shop, including the latest children’s nature books and Honeywrap’s reusable bamboo cutlery set ($25), perfect for school camps. Or gift a year’s membership to our Kiwi Conservation Club, which includes a year’s subscription to Wild Things magazine.

➎ Fine art prints Stu’s Duval’s brightly coloured, wonderful representations of some of our favourite birds are a well-loved favourite. Three are for sale in our shop – Sir Kākāpō Toff (pictured), Sir Albie Tross (albatross), and General Armitage Twigg (huia). The A3 size with border suitable for framing is $135.00. Also popular are Rachel Walker’s stunning native bird illustrations and Judi Lapsley Miller’s incredible digital artworks like this tūī (His Magnificence, limited edition, $260 each).

Last orders 12 December. Check out the full range at https://shop.forestandbird.org.nz.

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O U R PA R T N E R S

NATURE’S SUPERHEROES

Staff at JB Hi-Fi ride to the rescue with an innovative in-store fundraiser for Forest & Bird.

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e all know some real-life heroes working hard to protect and restore nature in their backyards, and, if you are one of them, thank you!

Now JB Hi-Fi is taking the idea a step further by creating “superheroes for nature” postcards to raise awareness and funds for Forest & Bird’s work.

The home entertainment retailer, which has been a great supporter of Forest & Bird for nearly a decade, recently challenged its staff to design a superhero inspired by the organisation’s work.

Three winners were chosen, and their designs will be printed into cards to be sold for $2 in JB HiFi’s New Zealand stores over four weeks from January.

JB Hi-Fi hopes to raise about $10,000 for Forest & Bird through the card sales.

“We’ve got some really talented and artistic people at JB Hi-Fi,” says Christine Gallagher, Support Office Manager for JB Hi-Fi New Zealand.

“It’s a way we can build support for the charity, and I think these guys have done a great job with their designs,” Christine says.

The superheroes include a fairy princess surrounded by native birds and trees, a caped female Indiana Jones-type adventurer alongside a caped kiwi, and a Batman-like figure posing in a tree with his bird sidekick.

The card sale period will climax with Superhero Saturday, when shop staff will be encouraged to come to work dressed as their favourite superheroes.

The campaign will be fun for staff and will also raise awareness

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of the company’s Helping Hands payroll giving programme.

Staff can give a set amount from each pay to their choice of Forest & Bird or five other charities, and the company matches the staff donations dollar for dollar.

Already 63% of staff participate in Helping Hands, and nearly $1 million has been raised for the supported charities since the programme began.

“We’re trying to build up that participation rate even further, and we think it’s great for all of us to pause from our busy day-to-day retail business and know we’re contributing to positive change,” says Christine, who manages the Helping Hands programme.

Forest & Bird’s relationship manager Jo Prestwood says JB Hi-Fi has been a great supporter of Forest & Bird.

“JB Hi-Fi are superheroes to us. Through the Helping Hands programme, they’ve contributed more than $190,000 to our efforts since 2012,” Jo says.

“Being able to rely on this regular income is incredibly valuable, and the superheroes campaign is a great way to further raise Forest & Bird’s profile with JB Hi Fi’s customers and staff.”

BRANCH PROJECT

LEAVING A LEGACY

Locals treasure Fensham Reserve with its giant kahikatea.

Jack Austin/Destination Wairarapa

Forest & Bird looks after ecological reserves all over Aotearoa. Here we profile Fensham Reserve in the Wairarapa. Erik Pedersen

A

s Forest & Bird heads towards its 100th birthday in 2023, we’ve been reflecting on conservationists who had the foresight to protect remnant areas of native bush before they were destroyed forever.

One such person was John Fensham, who purchased land west of Carterton in 1883 with the express intention of preserving the bush, including a swamp forest with mature kahikatea.

At the time, huia were still to be seen in Fensham’s dark forest with its abundance of huhu grubs, although the bird’s habitat on the nearby Wairarapa plains had long gone.

It was quite a remarkable act in those days, when early settlers were more likely to be burning forest and turning kahikatea into butter boxes than nurturing it. Did he see the intrinsic value of it for future generations?

John Fensham died in 1943 at the age of 93. His was a lifetime of hard work with a hand-to-mouth existence, yet he lived serenely,

Huia used to be present in the Fensham forest.

John and Melody Anderson

supported by his religious views and love of the bush.

In 1957, his daughter Ruby Fensham gifted the land to the care of Forest & Bird and the title was finally concluded on her death in 1978.

Since then, the 40ha Fensham Reserve has been looked after by generations of Wairarapa Branch volunteers, who have carried out thousands of hours of predator control and restoration work there.

It contains an important stand of remnant swamp forest with magnificent podocarps, including kahikatea, some dating back 700 years.

Rising above the 9ha primary forest is a further 28ha of regenerating forest and shrubland, including mānuka, tōtara, and black beech.

The regionally threatened fine-leaved pātōtara parsley fern and swamp willow herb are present, along with two species of translocated mistletoe that would have occurred here in the past.

The dawn chorus is exceptional and includes tūī, kererū, ruru, pīwakawaka, kākā, riroriro grey warbler, and kōtare kingfishers.

Lizards include ngahere gecko, copper skink, and raukawa gecko.

Recently, Fensham Reserve has been enhanced by groups of enthusiastic locals planting, constructing walkways, and clearing the pine trees and old man’s beard.

Restoration of the regionally

significant 3ha wetland, with its resident population of waikaka or endemic brown mudfish, is ongoing, and surrounding pastoral land is leased for grazing to support the reserve’s upkeep.

Thanks to two further acts of generosity, two parcels of land were gifted by neighbouring landowners in 2013. Work is well under way to incorporate these into the existing reserve.

The efforts of Forest & Bird’s volunteers over many decades have ensured that the health of this important remnant swamp forest is maintained, enhanced, and protected for future generations.

Members of the public can visit this ancient forest, remembering the generosity and foresight of one of New Zealand’s early conservationists, John Fensham.

John Fensham and his dog circa 1918.

Courtesy of Wairarapa Archives

Are you considering gifting a legacy for nature? For more information, go to www. forestandbird.org.nz/supportus/leave-gift-your-will.

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C L I M AT E

POWERING THE FUTURE

Is it feasible to stop using coal in Aotearoa? Don’t we need coking coal to make steel? Our climate team answers your burning questions.

HOW MUCH COAL DO WE USE IN NEW ZEALAND? New Zealand burns about 2.5 million tonnes of coal per year, with the biggest users being industry, electricity, and steel making.

Dairy factories account for about two-thirds of the total industry usage. Other much smaller industrial users include meat processing.

Dairy companies use coal-fired boilers to create the large volumes of process heat required to turn fresh milk into milk powder for export.

Fonterra, the nation’s largest industrial dairy operator, has said it plans to stop using coal by 2037.

Forest & Bird thinks this is too slow and the transition away from coal needs to speed up.

The Climate Commission’s advice says one or two dairy factories need to stop burning coal each year from now on, with a steep decline in coal use between now and 2025.

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This is one reason why Forest & Bird is calling for no new or expanded coal mines.

DON’T WE NEED COAL TO KEEP THE LIGHTS ON? The amount of coal burned for electricity generation in Aotearoa has dropped significantly since a massive peak in the early 2000s.

We don’t use as much coal for electricity as we used to, and the gap can be filled by new wind and solar farms coming online.

Huntly Power Station, which is owned by Genesis Energy, is New Zealand’s only coal-fired electricity generator and is used as a backup for when renewable electricity supplies are low.

It currently burns about 800,000 tonnes of coal a year. Genesis Energy says it aims to only use coal in abnormal market conditions by 2025 and stop altogether by 2030.

But the Climate Commission has said this should happen by the mid-2020s at the latest, and Forest & Bird agrees.

WHAT ABOUT OUR FUTURE NEEDS, SUCH AS CHARGING ELECTRIC CARS? Our population has increased by about 25%, or one million people, this century, but the demand for electricity has only risen by 13%.

We’re getting better at using electricity efficiently – and could do a lot more.

The Climate Commission estimates electricity generation will need to increase by 20% to 2035, as industry and transport sectors use more electricity. It says this will mainly come from wind and solar generation.

But this is going to require strong measures from the government to stimulate renewable generation construction and stop coal use at Huntly Power Station.

Part of the problem has been the uncertainty about whether Rio Tinto’s Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, which uses 13% of New Zealand’s electricity, will close and flood the market with renewable power. Because of this, even

consented windfarms haven’t yet been built.

One option proposed recently is the production of green hydrogen in Southland, which could then help decarbonise heavy transportation and industrial processes. The drop in demand from Tiwai closing could also be used to allow some more water to flow down the long deprived Waiau River.

AREN’T NEW COAL MINES NEEDED FOR STEEL-MAKING IN THE FUTURE? Steel manufacture represents about 8% of global emissions because it uses coking coal to remove iron from iron ore. But this job can be done by hydrogen – without putting large amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Green steel made in this way is closer than you might think. Most of the biggest steel companies already have projects under way, and production is due to start in the 2020s in several countries.

It is expected to be pricecompetitive in Europe by the 2030s, and this transition could be accelerated by better co-ordination, stronger targets, and targeted subsidies.

The International Energy Agency also expects the amount of recycled steel (produced using electric furnaces) to increase from 24% in 2020 to 37% in 2030.

The upshot is that the world is going to need a lot less coal for steel by the time production at the New Zealand’s Stockton Mine, which exports about a million tonnes of coking coal a year for steel production, comes to an end by about 2030.

WON’T WE HAVE TO IMPORT MORE COAL IF WE STOP BUILDING NEW MINES? There’s been a lot of publicity recently about coal being imported from Indonesia. In fact, over the past 30 years, New Zealand has exported far more coal than it’s imported – about six times as much in total.

Stockton Mine, West Coast.

Neil Silverwood

But the point is that right now, and in the future, all coal use needs to rapidly decline to keep climate warming to 1.5ºC. The things we need for a safe climate – Huntly to stop burning coal and Fonterra to accelerate its transition away from coal – mean demand for coal will drop both locally and internationally. So we won’t need to open new mines or import cheap coal from overseas.

WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN NEXT? Recently, the International Energy Agency took the unprecedented step of calling for an end to all investment in new oil, gas, or coal.

Developed countries such as New Zealand need to lead the way.

The government needs to set out a clear policy banning all new and extended coal mines and phasing out the extraction of coal. This will give time for the coal industry to plan a just transition for its employees.

Long lead-in times mean that new mining operations approved in the 2020s could lock New Zealand into a high-emissions scenario well into the 2040s or, more likely, become expensive stranded assets in the future.

For example, the Stockton Cypress Mine extension into the ecologically significant Happy Valley wetland was first mooted nearly 20 years ago but is only now producing coal.

And, once the coal is exhausted or the mines become uneconomic, New Zealanders will be stuck with expensive environmental clean-up costs.

For industry laggards who prefer not to think about whether they’re contributing to dangerous climate change, we believe nothing will focus their minds quite like a limit.

Moving away from our reliance on coal is affordable and feasible, but it requires strong action now – and one of those actions must be no new coal mines.

Sign Forest & Bird’s no new coal mines petition!

See www.forestandbird.org.nz/petitions/no-new-coal-mines.

Ron and Edna

Greenwood Environmental

TRUST

The trust provides financial support for projects advancing the conservation and protection of New Zealand’s natural resources, particularly flora and fauna, marine life, geology, atmosphere, and waters.

More information is available from the Trust at PO Box 10-359, Wellington.

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COMMUNITY Volunteer planting day next to the golf course, Centennial Park.

Richard Hursthouse

NATURE FLOURISHES IN LOCKDOWN Abundant birdlife in her North Shore backyard provided a welcome focus for Liz Goodwin during daily lockdown walks.

L

OCATION: Centennial Park bush and golf course, North Shore, early morning Saturday 28 August 2021 After a couple of minutes dithering at dawn, I decided to carry on and do the bird count despite the forecast of rain.

It was the right decision. After a grey-sky start, the sun shone through on a surprisingly mild late winter’s day in August.

Two pīwakawaka fantails and two riroriro grey warblers flitted around a large eucalyptus tree in Park Rise. I stood and watched as a kererū floated high in the sky, stalled, and then went into a freefall dive in a spectacular display flight.

The other birds sitting in nearby trees must surely have been impressed.

Riroriro trilled their song. Vocal chaffinches matched them, keeping in touch with each other with their “chink, chink” contact call, as well as singing their melodious breeding song.

The golf course looked magical in the slanting rays of the sun, with a myriad of raindrops on the grass trembling like diamonds in the

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breeze. A rainbow briefly appeared, and, apart from a teenager twirling his poppy-red umbrella, no other people were to be seen.

A brisk walk to check the pond.

It was filled to the brim with water and lots of croaking frogs.

I quickly scanned the golf links for the large flock, 80+, of goldfinches that had been hanging out there for the last week. But no sign of them.

Early morning dogs and walkers were beginning to appear, alarming a pair of spur-winged plovers and sending them into a frenzy.

Their two fluffy grey chicks were vulnerable out on the open grass, and the male wheeled around in the air screeching and divebombing a Labrador while the

Riroriro grey warbler.

Oscar Thomas

other shepherded Liz Goodwin the chicks to safety among the newly planted plants.

Mild temperatures bring spring-like behaviour, and there was no shortage of tūī flaunting their wares, flying, singing, and challenging the competition.

Black-backed gulls soared high, feral doves flew over going who knows where, blackbirds and thrushes foraged for worms, magpies chortled, and rosellas chattered.

I sat in the sun for a few minutes at the 16th tee hoping to spot the five yellowhammers that have been hanging out there recently, but no luck. No kōtare kingfishers either.

They are often seen by the tennis courts.

Then on into the Aberdeen Track, spotting seven pīwakawaka and a large flock of tauhou silvereyes busily darting about feeding in the canopy.

Sparrows and starlings were flitting about at Rae Road as I stopped to admire the newly formed zig-zag track among new planting below the Morton seats.

I keep going, happy not to have

encountered too many maskless walkers so far. Along the Magnolia Track, I admire the young kōwhai, recently planted and heavily mulched.

Two welcome swallows circle and swoop as I head up the Baylis Track before returning to the links to check again for the goldfinches.

There they were, quietly hopping and feeding in the absence of humans.

The golf course has been a lifesaver for many people during the Covid-19 lockdown, but it has meant constant disruption for many birds’ usual routines!

Liz Goodwin is a member of Forest & Bird’s North Shore Branch and a volunteer for the Centennial Park Bush Society.

During her daily lockdown walks, she spotted 22 different bird species.

DISABILITY NO BIRDING BARRIER

Conservation volunteers have been working to restore the park’s native bush for 45 years. Kohe stream track.

Vic Morris

SAFE HABITATS FOR WILDLIFE

Centennial Park is a central part of Auckland’s North-West Wildlink habitat restoration project, and birds often fly through while migrating.

Volunteers have been working to restore the park’s native bush since 1976, when the Centennial Park Bush Society was formed. There are eight walking tracks, including a nature trail with numbered plants and trees to help visitors learn about the bush.

The tracks are suitable for most Centennial ages and levels of fitness. NorthPark West Wildlink involves many community groups working together to restore habitats between islands in the Hauraki Gulf and the Waitākere Ranges, AUCKLAND so wildlife can travel safely between coasts.

50

years ago

Neil Wallace is an amateur bird photographer with a difference.

As the August Covid-19 lockdown began, the double below-knee amputee spent a lot of his time sitting perfectly still in his wheelchair trying to capture great images of our suburban fauna.

The newbie wildlife photographer rigged up a homemade garden hide and captured some lovely images of birdlife in his Palmerston North garden.

“To get these shots, I used an A-frame ladder, a green blanket which I pegged over it to create a simple hide, then I sat patiently for hours on end. The silver lining of being in lockdown was having the time to think creatively and to plan for the peaceful stalking of the local bird life.

“Even in suburbia, if you have the right kind of native trees in your garden, native birds will visit.”

LOSING OUR ENVIRONMENT Not infrequently we hear over the air, or read in the newspapers, claims made by some financial or industrial personality that if we want to make progress, we must be prepared to sacrifice something, the reference being, of course, to our natural resources. Others appeal to conservationists to be reasonable... But surely, the cost of so-called progress has been entirely at the expense of our natural environment. We think it is now time some of the sacrifices and reasonableness demanded of us should be displayed by those whose principle interests are in the acquisition of dollars and cents.

Forest & Bird, issue 182, November 1971

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Holiday

BOOKS

Looking to kick back and relax in nature this summer? Here’s our pick of new titles to enjoy this Christmas. Plus receive a 20% discount on the first seven books, courtesy of Potton & Burton.

➊ Above the Treeline by Alan Mark

A comprehensive guide to the rich alpine world of Aotearoa. Above the Treeline is an essential publication for anyone interested in the plants, ferns, mosses, lichen, invertebrates, birds, and lizards that occupy these diverse environments ($79.99, Potton & Burton).

➋ After Dark by Annette Lees

In the company of bats, owls, moths, singing crickets, and seabirds, After Dark guides us from dusk to dawn with stories of those who inhabit the night, from lighthouse keepers, trampers, ecologists, Polynesian navigators, and ghosts and spirits (39.99, Potton & Burton).

➌ New Zealand Seabirds

by Kerry-Jayne Wilson This comprehensive guide will open your eyes to the unknown worlds of albatrosses, penguins, shearwaters, petrels, and prions. New Zealand Seabirds is an essential companion for anyone who appreciates the wildlife of our coastlines and the oceans beyond ($49.99, Potton & Burton).

➍ Ray Ching New Zealand Bird Paintings

This lavishly produced book is a tribute to one of the most significant wildlife painters of our time. Born in New Zealand, Ray Ching established himself as a bird artist in the 1960s before moving to England ($79.99, Potton & Burton).

➎ Mana of the Pacific by

20%

READER DISCOUNT READER OFFER To receive a 20% discount on the seven Potton & Burton books on this page, go to www.pottonandburton.co.nz and use the code FOREST22 at checkout.

Offer closes 28 February 2022.

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Apisalome Movono & Regina Scheyvens

This inspirational book speaks to the importance of Pacific customs, traditions, and lifestyle. Mana of the Pacific’s proverbs and beautiful photographs highlight the strength, resilience, wisdom, and innovation of people from 17 different Pacific nations ($39.99, Potton & Burton).

➏ Incredible Journeys by Ned Barraud

In this new book, author and illustrator Ned Barraud uncovers the mystery behind the incredible travelling lives of some of New Zealand’s iconic wildlife, including albatross, penguins, crayfish, and tuna eels ($21.99 paperback and $29.99 hardback, Potton & Burton).

Wai Pasifika by David Young In this beautifully written and stunningly illustrated book, David Young focuses on the increasingly endangered resource of freshwater, and what so-called developed societies can learn from the indigenous voices of the Pacific ($60, Otago University Press).

Invasive Predators in New Zealand, Disaster on Four Small Paws by Carolyn M. King A comprehensive history of the arrival of invasive mammals and their impact on the country’s endemic fauna that had evolved in isolation until Polynesians and then Europeans arrived with a host of companion animals in tow ($50, Otago University Press).

Lonely Islands by Terry Thomsen An engaging story of the pre-human history of New Zealand. The Lonely Islands will give the reader new insights into how our natural world evolved and why so many endemic species are in trouble today ($49.99, New Holland Press).

➐ New Zealand’s Backyard Birds by Ned Barraud

An engaging guide to the different birds children are likely to see around their own homes, including natives, such as tūī and pīwakawaka fantail, and introduced species, such as thrush and blackbird ($21.99 paperback and $29.99 hardback, Potton & Burton).

Te Kupenga, 101 stories of Aotearoa, edited by Chris Szekely and Michael Keith This fascinating new book dips into national treasures held at the Alexander Turnbull Library.

It is the oldest part of New Zealand’s national library and has a huge collection of books, maps, paintings, digital objects, ephemera, and more ($60, Massey University Press).

Tussock by Bruce Hunt Over nearly 40 years, artist Bruce Hunt has explored the wild ridgelines, hills, and valleys of Otago and Canterbury, photographing the tussocklands and braided rivers. Tussock is a celebration of an ecology and landscape that is uniquely Aotearoa ($69.99, Bateman Books).

Wildlife of New Zealand by Julian Fitter This essential field guide covers the birds, mammals, insects, reptiles, and land mammals that you are likely to see on your travels around the country. It’s a fully revised and expanded second edition ($49.99, Bateman Books).

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RESEARCH Ruru or morepork are one native bird you might encounter in your city backyard if you are lucky.

John Parker | Maddox Photography

GREEN SPACES MATTER

Can having birds in our backyards really improve our mental health?

The science says, yes, it can!

W

e all know that spending time in nature is enjoyable, but there’s increasing evidence that wildlife – and birds in particular – have a profound positive impact on our mental wellbeing.

Birding is undoubtedly a pleasant experience – joyful, picturesque, some might even say restorative – but, as anyone who has ever suffered anxiety or depression knows, pleasant things are not necessarily enough to alleviate long-term mood disorders. So, can birds and nature really benefit our mental health?

There’s increasing scientific evidence that they can – especially for people living in built-up areas.

One study found that vegetation cover and afternoon bird abundance were positively associated with a lower prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress.

The findings were so clear that researchers could put a number on the minimum amount of vegetation cover needed to reduce each mental health issue: 20% for depression and stress, and 30% for anxiety.

Source: ‘Doses of Neighborhood Nature’, published in BioScience, 2017.

Zooming in on birds, another study put a literal price on bird biodiversity.

Researchers used information from the European Quality of Life Survey to compare the satisfaction levels of more than 26,000 adults with the diversity of birds found around their homes, towns, and cities. The results showed a clear correlation between happiness and the number of bird species.

In fact, birds were found to be just as important for human wellbeing as financial security. According

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to their calculations, being near 14 additional bird species provided as much satisfaction as earning an extra $150 a month. Source: ‘The Importance of Species Diversity for Human Well-being in Europe’, published in Ecological Economics, 2020.

There’s no way of knowing whether it was the birds themselves that caused this phenomenal effect, or just their species richness, which is an indicator of other natural features such as forests, rivers, and lakes.

However, there are numerous arguments in birds’ favour. Our flapping marvels are some of the most visible (and audible) members of the animal world and are much more likely to make their presence known to us in our everyday lives, reminding us that there’s more to life than urban drudgery.

It may seem strange to present the beauty and inspiration of nature in a scientific – some might say soulless – way. How can you put a price on the swoosh of a kererū wing or write a prescription for waking up to the dawn chorus?

But such statistics are more important now than ever.

The UN estimates that 54% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and that proportion is rising all the time. More and more of us are living lives separate from nature – but thanks to studies like these, planners have concrete evidence that green spaces really do matter.

This is an edited version of an article written by our friends at Birdlife International to mark International Mental Health Day.

OBITUARIES

Shaking the tree A tribute to Alan Edmonds, Distinguished Life Member and past Forest & Bird President and Vice President.

A

young Hamilton botanist and pro-National Forests Action Council (NFAC) candidate stood for the Forest & Bird Executive in the late 1970s.

Alan Edmond’s bid to join the governing body of the Society was successful, and he served on the Executive for an incredible 18 years. Alan was made a Distinguished Life Member in 1986.

He was passionate about the environment and deeply involved in conservation in New Zealand during a time of great change.

The late 1970s was politically challenging for New Zealand conservation during the Muldoon years, with the emergence of NFAC coinciding with a transition towards more activism and a younger representation at Forest & Bird.

“My nomination for the Society’s National Executive in 1979 was part of an infiltration or takeover attempt from NFAC because of frustrations they were experiencing in their attempts to get a coordinated approach to some major forest conservation campaigns at that time, particularly on the West Coast,” Alan said in an interview.

He was one of a number of scientists who joined the Executive during this period, including John Morton, Charles Fleming, and Alan Mark.

“This served to give a strong scientific basis to the Executive’s deliberations, a situation further enhanced when Gerry McSweeney – a recent Lincoln graduate with expertise in South Island tussock grasslands – was

appointed conservation officer in 1980,” he added.

In June 1984, Alan, who was by then working for the University of Waikato, was elected President at the age of 43. He served as President until 1986. One of his achievements was getting Forest & Bird to widen its brief to campaign on marine issues.

“We realised Forest & Bird’s focus was too narrow.

Wetlands, shrublands, tussock grasslands, coastal issues, and marine became more important,” he said.

In 1985, he became Trust Manager at the QEII National Trust and went on to become a foundation member of the Department of Conservation in 1987, serving as Deputy Director-General.

Alan lived in Eastbourne, Wellington, for 30 years, and died in July 2021. He remained a supporter of Forest & Bird’s work and mission all of his life.

Wetland warrior

N

elson Tasman conservationist Helen Campbell died suddenly on 19 July 2021 after a short illness.

She was awarded an Old Blue in 2012 for the huge amount of work she did for Forest & Bird over many years, including chairing Nelson and Tasman Branch.

Her detailed knowledge of the Resource Management Act and the consents process made her an invaluable committee member.

The former Tasman district councillor was also well versed in council policies and wrote many branch submissions.

Helen was a founding member, with her late husband

Eric, of the group formed to restore Wakefield bush, south of Nelson, and she played a key part in the planting of Twin Bridges reserve.

She worked particularly hard to get a better outcome for the contaminated land once occupied by the Fruitgrowers Chemical Company, in Mapua. She also improved conditions for the Wakapuaka wetland, east of Nelson.

Her environmental systems’ knowledge, warmth, and quirky sense of humour will be missed.

A memorial for Helen was held in August, and a kahikatea was planted in her beloved Wakefield bush by her grandchildren and branch chair.

By Gillian Pollock Summer 2021

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Forest & Bird members can book all of these lodges at reasonable rates. Join today and feel good knowing you are making a difference for New Zealand’s nature. See www.forestandbird.org.nz/joinus.

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Tai Haruru Lodge Piha, West Auckland Sleeps 5+4 hop0018@slingshot.co.nz 09 812 8064

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LAST WORD

INTO THE BLUE Could dynamic management help the Department of Conservation and industry protect New Zealand’s unique population of blue whales?

R

esearchers have developed a method for forecasting the locations where a distinct population of New Zealand blue whales are most likely to occur up to three weeks in advance.

This breakthrough could be a significant advance in conservation management for a species that can come into contact with a wide range of commercial activities, including oil and gas exploration and extraction, vessel traffic, fisheries, and possible seabed mining.

New Zealand blue whales are genetically distinct from other blue whale populations and occur yearround in the South Taranaki Bight. There are about 700 whales in the population, and the South Taranaki Bight is their only documented foraging ground.

“These forecasts will give managers a really good ability to predict where whales are likely to be and then make decisions about what activities should or shouldn’t happen in those areas,” says study co-author Dr Leigh Torres, of Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute.

The findings were published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. New Zealand’s Department of Conservation supported the research.

Torres and colleagues confirmed New Zealand has its own population of blue whales in 2018, following several research expeditions to the Taranaki Bight.

Initially, there was hope of establishing a marine protected area – an area on a map that denotes where certain activities are allowed or excluded – to protect the whales.

New Zealand’s blue whales are genetically distinct, with about 700 animals living in the South Taranaki Bight.

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This type of marine protected area is considered a static management technique. But for animals such as whales that are mobile and spend time in many different places, static management may not be as effective, says Leigh.

An alternative strategy is dynamic management, meaning management that is responsive to changing conditions and locations of animals.

Previous research identified certain ocean patterns that informed where New Zealand blue whales and the krill they eat were likely to be. This latest research builds on those findings.

The team collected 10 years of data over a broad range of weather and ocean conditions, including upwelling dynamics and marine heat waves, that can influence availability of krill, particularly in the spring and summer months when the whales are most likely to be feeding in the region.

From that data, the researchers developed a forecasting model that indicates where conditions will be good for blue whales to forage up to three weeks in advance.

“These forecasts are possible because of the knowledge we’ve gained about this population and their ecology in this region over our years of studying these whales,” says study lead author Dawn Barlow.

The team is now developing a desktop application for the forecasting model that can be easily used by conservation managers to produce a map indicating likelihood of whale presence.

“It is a super exciting tool that can allow managers and industry to plan ahead,” adds Leigh. “It’s a concept that can be built upon and applied in other regions, too.”

Parting shot

Alex Stammers

This image is of two tāmure snappers at Goat Island, Northland, my favourite dive location for photographing fish in their natural habitat. If you stay still and lay on the bottom, the snapper will approach very closely. The larger snapper is showing his dominance over the smaller snapper, pushing it around to show who’s boss. I used a slow shutter speed to capture the movement. I am a sixth generation photographer currently working as a forensic photographer with NZ Police. Photography for me is a passion and skill – whether it’s capturing the world beneath the waves or the beauty of nature on land.

WILD ABOUT NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION How to enter: Share your photos of native birds, trees, flowers, insects, lizards, marine animals, or natural landscapes, and be in to win.

Send your high-res digital file and brief details about your photo to Caroline Wood at editor@forestandbird. org.nz. The best entry will be published in the next issue of Forest & Bird magazine.

The prize: The winner will receive this fabulous limited edition Hannah Shand fine art print Manaaki Kākā (A2 size, RRP $380) inspired by a photograph taken

by Judi Lapsley Miller. Cheeky kākā like these ones are spilling out of Zealandia Ecosanctuary into surrounding Wellington suburbs, much to the delight of residents. Hannah’s timeless bird artworks capture the special character of each species in exquisitely fine detail.

Manaaki Kākā by Hannah Shand.

Also available in A4, A3, and A1 sizes from www.hannahshandart.com.

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Adelaide Tarn Kahurangi National Park Photo: Mark Watson

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